


Corpus Christi Carol

by LastAmericanMermaid



Series: Oh, I Know You'll Be Back [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Depression, Feels, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Sequel, Silver Thread 'verse, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Steve Angst, Steve Needs a Hug, slight fix-it for AoU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:56:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4745435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastAmericanMermaid/pseuds/LastAmericanMermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every story has two points of view. </p><p>While Bucky was fighting himself and his demons to get back to Steve, Steve was struggling with the weight of a guilt that would crush him, if his heart didn't manage it first. </p><p>(A Single Silver Thread, told from Steve's POV)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I finally got my butt in gear to work on: a sequel from Steve's POV for the events of A Single Silver Thread. 
> 
> I've been kind of MIA on here for a couple months, so hopefully the dreaded writer's block is vanquished for a spell. Also, all the Civil War stuff has got me all feely and Stucky-minded. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve Rogers never knew when to back down from a fight. 

That’s what anyone would say, anyone who knew him even a little.

If they could see him now, on his knees in front of HYDRA’s ghost, his shield lost to the Potomac, well—maybe they’d say something else. 

Steve knows that this is the most important fight of his life. 

He also knows it is the one fight he would never, ever want to win. 

He closes his eyes, doesn’t try to block the cruel metal fist as it connects with his face, over and over. 

The Winter Soldier has wild, frightened eyes like a wounded animal. Steve knows he will not walk away from this fight, but not in the way people expect. 

When he makes contact with the water, he is barely conscious.

He sinks deeper, vision blurring to black. 

He thinks, _I deserve this._

He thinks, _I’m sorry._

. . . 

When he wakes in the hospital, he knows deep in his gut that he’s never been the better man. 

Sam is at his bedside, all calm and light banter. Steve can tell, though, underneath all that, Sam was worried. 

“He . . . he saved me.” Steve’s throat feels like sandpaper, and he reaches for the cup of water on the bedside tray. 

Sam gives one of those sidelong looks, one brow raising slightly. 

“There’s nothing to prove that he did, but,” he speaks slowly, with purpose “Nothing to prove that he didn’t, either.” 

Steve’s heart gives a small stutter in his bruised chest. 

“Had to’ve been him,” Steve closes his eyes—he doesn’t want to see the face Sam might make. “No one else could have pulled me up, stayed under that long.” 

He breathes out shakily. Counts to ten. 

“Hey, man, off the record and on the down-low? I’m with you. Your boy was the only one with the stats to haul you out of the river.” 

Steve opens his eyes, and Sam’s face is part-disapproving mother, part-exasperated right-hand man. 

“But, Steve,” he lowers his voice, looks over his shoulder before continuing “He’s in the wind. No trace. HYDRA’s in ruins, nowhere for him to report. It’s gonna be dangerous.” 

Steve swallows around the lump in his throat. 

Sam knows, knows without having to ask. There could never be anything else for Steve, not now. He needs to find Bucky, even if there’s nothing of Bucky left. He can’t do it alone. 

He tries not to think about the ways he’s failed Bucky. He’s lived this long with the knowledge that he wasn’t enough. 

He couldn’t reach far enough, even with Erskine’s serum, to pull his entire world up back inside that train car in the Alps. 

He hadn’t even _looked_ for Bucky, he’d just gone half-mad with grief and blazed his trail of vengeance all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. 

When he’d seen the Winter Soldier, when the mask had fallen away. . . Steve had realized like a shot to the gut that he had failed Bucky worse then he could ever have imagined. And then, even brainwashed and tortured, Bucky pulled Steve from the Potomac. He’d dived out of the falling helicarrier with hardly a moment’s pause, to save a man whose name and face he didn’t even remember. 

Bucky always saved Steve; that was how it worked, that is how it will always work. 

Steve politely tells Sam that he’s tired, that he’d like to grab a couple winks. 

When Sam is gone, the door closed, and Steve is all alone, he cries. 

It is ugly, silent and raw. His throat is tight and painful, and he thinks, _I deserve it_. 

  


Steve has always hoped to repay Bucky for everything, to one day save his life good enough so that they’d be on even ground. 

Steve covers his face with his hands while his shoulders shake silently, chest squeezing with something like the faint ghost of his past asthma, and lets himself begin to grieve. 

. . .

  


It doesn’t occur to Steve until much later just how fitting, how telling it is that their friendship began with a fight. 

Steve, all of about 7 years old, had witnessed a group of boys throwing rocks at a girl their age. Steve’s never liked bullies. Steve also has never been able to keep his mouth shut.

He gave those boy what-for, cheeks burning with his indignation, and then it had all gone south. 

One of them socked him right in the eye, and then he got knocked down, and he wondered how long it would take for them to lose interest and go find someone else to torment. He had been about to curl in on himself, try to protect his own small body with his scrawny arms, when an interloper cut in and really gave those jerks what-for. 

It didn’t take long, and when the bullies had made their retreat, the mysterious stranger offered Steve a hand up from the ground. 

The hand belonged to a boy with wild brown hair and a toothy smile, taller than Steve (who wasn’t?) and sporting a few scrapes of his own. 

The boy was named James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky, to his friends. 

  


That day, Steve became his friend. 

. . . 

  


When they were right on the cusp of puberty, Steve had realized that something must be wrong with him. 

Sure, he _liked_ girls well enough—not that he’d ever had one like him back—but there was something that made his eyes linger too long on Bucky, something that recently had begun making his stomach flutter and his palms sweat. 

He’d supposed it could be envy; Bucky had shot up four inches and was growing like a weed, already giving anyone who looked at him a preview of the handsome man he would become. 

Bucky was charming, too; smooth and good at talking in a way Steve had never been. He sweet-talked teachers and shopkeepers; he’d even conned the nurses to let him stay with Steve in the hospital past visiting hours when Steve had been laid up with rheumatic fever. 

Something about the way Bucky had all this energy, had a spark inside that made Steve want always to be near him. 

Bucky looked at Steve and he saw more than just the sickly, pale boy with the dead father. Bucky looked at Steve and he knew him.

  


Once, when they were twelve and thirteen, respectively, they were sleeping spooned close in Steve’s bed the way they always did. Bucky said it was to share heat, seeing as Steve always needed as much help with that as he could get. 

It was winter, and Steve hadn’t gotten sick yet, miracle of miracles. Bucky would curl up pressed flush along Steve’s back, slinging an arm around him to pull Steve close. Steve will always remember that night, because it was the night he _knew_. 

He woke sweating and hot from a dream that he could only remember flashes of; a red mouth, strong hands, the angle of a sharp jaw. 

He also awoke to the strange sensation of his first erection. He was achingly hard, and suddenly mortified to be in bed with _Bucky_ when he popped his first hard-on. 

Steve was acutely aware of Bucky’s arm draped heavily over his middle, of the warm little puffs of air that Bucky breathed against the back of his neck. He screwed his eyes shut tight and attempted to will the problem away, but it couldn’t be helped. 

Steve pictured those dark lashes against Bucky’s cheek, pictured his slow grin, pictured the easy way Bucky made Steve feel like he actually mattered. 

He thought of the stories Bucky told him about girls he’d kissed, and for the first time, Steve could identify the little twisting feeling he always got in his stomach. 

Jealousy, pure and simple. 

Steve had always thought he was jealous of _Bucky_ , getting to kiss the pretty girls, having their attention and their crushes. 

Steve had realized that night like the weight of a stone in his gut that it was the girls who got to kiss Bucky he was jealous of. 

Steve had gritted his teeth, swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to will away the shame. 

He had to hide this, he knew; Bucky could never, ever know. 

Bucky was all Steve had, all the good there was in the world for Steve Rogers, concentrated into one person. 

If there was one thing Steve knew he was good at, it was not asking for more than he should.

. . . 

Then, they were suddenly teenagers, and Steve had been quietly burning for his best friend for four long years. 

He laughed when Bucky ribbed him about dates, and pretended to be shocked by Bucky’s raunchy tales, all the while telling himself that it was fine. He could live with this. Having Bucky’s unfaltering loyalty was enough. 

But . . . sometimes, Steve just—he just _wanted_ so badly. And it was just so hard, living in each others’ pockets the way they did. Bucky was always so tactile, quick to throw an arm around Steve’s thin shoulders or to drape his long legs over Steve when they sat on the dingy, trashed sofa. 

He was tall, then, the way men are tall, and he had just started shaving with his dad’s old razor. Steve remembered the little nicks all over Bucky’s jaw, the way Bucky had practically radiated pride the first time he’d shaved. 

Steve was still Steve, only slightly bigger, and with a deeper voice.

It wasn’t that Steve hated himself; he wasn’t concerned with his appearance, most of the time. 

Most of the time, it didn’t matter. 

He spent all his free time with Bucky, and Bucky didn’t care, so, neither did Steve. 

Sometimes, though . . . sometimes it stung, being picked last or not at all, being ridiculed and sneered at and looked down on. 

Sometimes, Steve ached with the longing he felt to just be normal. 

  


He remembers that rooftop in the summer, when they’d sneak up there just the two of them, drinking and getting the giggles. 

Steve remembers how he tried not to, but that his eyes kept dragging back to Bucky like they couldn’t help themselves.

In the dark, at least Bucky couldn’t see how red he probably was. 

Sometimes, on those nights, Steve would catch Bucky looking at him like there was something he was trying to figure out, lips parted and brows knit. 

It made Steve take longer pulls on the bottle, trying desperately to drive the strangeness away. It made him want to hide, or to do something monumentally stupid, like try to kiss Bucky. 

Looking back, Steve notes with bemused, slightly-stung irony, that there are many moments in his life from before that he felt like this.

He remembers more than a few times that Bucky had looked at him with that foreign, open kind of awe. 

Steve wonders what could have happened if he’d just been a little bit brave. 

. . .

  


Bucky is nowhere to be found. Steve and Sam go everywhere the files lead them; they take out remaining HYDRA cells and occasionally meet up with the other Avengers for trickier missions (Nat or Clint) or missions which require a bit more firepower (Tony).

Steve is starting to feel ragged and beat, all this chasing with no end in sight. He stands in front of a mirror in a safe-house somewhere in Eastern Europe, cataloguing his bruises and cuts, and the dark circles under his eyes. 

He sees, for the first time, how hollow he looks, and realizes that he can’t keep looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found. 

When he comes out of the bathroom, Sam is waiting with a cup of coffee and a knowing look. 

“I’d say it’s time to go home, but it looks like the mirror beat me to it.” 

Steve nods, unable to speak. He is both profoundly relieved and devastated. 

. . .

Instead of going back to New York, where there are too many ghosts and nothing is how he remembers it, Steve asks Sam if he wouldn’t mind a roommate.

“You touch my shows on the DVR, you’re dead, national icon or not,” Sam says sternly before grinning and clapping Steve on the shoulder. 

So, Steve doesn’t touch Sam’s shows (or his special imported cheeses, _or_ his secret stash of frozen Snickers bars) and Sam very tactfully says nothing about the sketchbooks Steve fills with page after page of square jaws and unruly dark hair. 

Sometimes, Natasha comes over unannounced, and the three of them play cards or watch movies. Sometimes Clint comes, too. He takes great pleasure in being the person to introduce Captain America to Cards Against Humanity.

Sam is mortified until he realizes that Steve is reading the examples and actually not fainting or foaming at the mouth. 

Clint is very vocal about his disappointment over Steve’s blasé reaction. 

“Yeah, but imagine how disappointed Tony will be.” Steve says, reaching for a handful of popcorn. 

“That he didn’t get to show you the game?” Clint cocks his head. “Or that you aren’t fazed by the crude, lowbrow humor and profanity?” 

“Both,” Steve says, letting himself grin. He has to remind himself daily that he is allowed to enjoy things. “I swear, it’s like no one remembers I was in the army. The other Howlies would have loved this game.”

It’s still a bittersweet ache, thinking about the men he fought so closely beside up until the end; it’s an ache that Steve finds he doesn’t mind all that much, though. It’s a good sort of hurt, the kind that comes with the healing process. He likes to remember them. 

Then, Natasha plays the card **Iron Man** with **You are not alone, millions of Americans struggle with ____ every day.**

Sam actually spits out his beer, which only makes Clint laugh harder. Steve can’t remember the last time he laughed like this. Even Natasha’s flawless facade cracks when she chuckles lowly. 

(Steve isn’t sure what it says about him that he finds such an offensive game funny.)

(He really isn’t sure what it says about him that he finds any card pair containing the Captain America card hysterical.) 

  


Later, when he’s getting ready for bed, Steve swears he sees something in the dark out his window. 

It’s gone too fast for him to really be sure, but Steve thinks he may have seen the gleam of metal, flashing off a streetlamp or a passing car.

He knows that this is the grief making him crazy, making him see things that he wishes were there, things that are not there. 

  


He sighs and tries not to hope too much. 

. . . 

Things become more or less normal, and Steve becomes accustomed to a routine.

He runs with Sam, trains at a local gym, and catches up on the seemingly endless parade of things he missed.

Steve tries not to look in every alley or up on every rooftop for some telltale sign of Bucky. He mostly succeeds in this.

He visits the Smithsonian a few more times, though he isn’t sure whether it’s helping or just helping to twist the knife. 

  


Once, Natasha goes with him. She must see something on Steve’s face while she watches him watch those old film reels, because when he turns to say something, she looks almost pained. 

Steve wants to say something to explain away whatever it is she’s seen, but Natasha just loops her small arm through his and leans her cheek against his side and hums in that low winter-smoke voice of hers.

“I’m so sorry, Steve.” 

Steve realizes, for the first time, that no one has ever said that and _meant_ it the way she does. The way she says it, there is no doubt that she knows. 

She understands. 

Four words that hold all the full weight of Steve’s loss: of a friend, of a love, of a chance, of the hope that maybe Bucky would be in a better place.

“I never—” Steve tries, then stops. “He didn’t know. It wasn’t…like that.” 

Natasha says nothing for a moment, thinking. 

“That doesn’t make it hurt less, just different.” She says, and then leads him gently away. 

Away from the pictures and displays, from the little TVs and memorabilia. 

Away from the giant placard memorializing the only Howling Commando to lose his life in service of his country. 

Steve lets her lead him away, and later, in the comfort of his and Sam’s living room, he lets her see him cry. 

She sits beside him on the couch, rubs soothing circles across his broad back while Steve allows himself to hurt just a little more. 

Natasha, to her credit, does not say it will all be okay. Sam (to _his_ credit), when he enters, says nothing. He just sits down on Steve’s other side and throws an arm over his shoulders. 

Steve is oblivious to the knowing look Sam and Natasha share, as well as to the bag of shining, perfect apples on the kitchen counter that no one bought. 

  


And to the soft, mechanical whirring outside the window, just for a second.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets hurt, and his apartment is burglarized. 
> 
> He doesn't really mind the second bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another li'l chapter for you lovely beans.

Things go on, as things tend to do, and Steve does what he has always done (or at least, what he’s done since waking in this loud, crowded century without Bucky)—he fights.

He takes on more HYDRA goons than he should at a time, throws himself in harm’s way as often as possible with the rationalization that it’s half- reckless death wish, half- atonement.

Sam glares at him over the newspaper one morning following a particularly bad op. Steve had taken a knife to the shoulder, as well as to just a hairsbreadth away from his kidney.

“Silent treatment, really?” Steve tries for light, but it doesn’t suit the mood.

Sam turns the page of the paper loudly, raising his eyebrows and very pointedly not looking at Steve.

“Oh, come _on_ , Wilson. This wasn’t my first rodeo, okay? So, I took a little damage. It happens. I’m fine.”

“Are you, really?” Sam puts the paper down and folds his arms across his chest.

Steve suddenly wonders why he was so eager to have this conversation just seconds ago.

“Wound’ll be completely healed up by tomorrow morning. Like I said, fine.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it, Steve.” Sam’s voice holds both concern and a warning.

Steve stares blandly back at him, waiting for an excuse to get angry so he can leave the unbearable coziness of the kitchen table. Hide away in his room or let the city swallow him up.

“Ever since we got back, you’ve been diving headfirst into the fire.” Sam lays both hands flat on the table, palms-down. “Now, the way _I_ see it, you’re either trying to get yourself killed, or just near enough that you-know-who will come out of the woodwork to save your sorry ass. Again.”

Steve doesn’t know how to respond.

He’s annoyed, irritated; mostly, because he knows that Sam is right. Upset that he’s so transparent. Guilty that even after all this time, he’s still selfish.

After several uncomfortably long moments, Steve looks down at his hands, turning them over to note with small pleasure the raw, scraped knuckles, the calluses and split blisters.

“I just—I want to know where he is, if he’s okay.” He says finally, frowning at a scuff mark on the table’s surface. Sam sighs, deflates a little.

“I know, man. But you gotta just focus on getting your mind right, keeping yourself well. That way, if he does come, you can be his safety, you know?”

Steve _does_ know. There is an irrefutable truth to Sam’s words, and Steve is willing to bet that better men have crumbled under the weight of Sam Wilson’s unparalleled insight.

Just as Steve is about to be lost in the untidy mess of his tangled thoughts, Sam tosses something at him.

He catches it with ease, a solid, smooth, round thing bigger than a baseball.

“Have an apple, Steve. Don’t overthink it.”

Steve turns the apple over in his hand once, marveling at the shiny skin, the pink fading to a deeper blush.

He bites into it, the sound as crisply, sharply, sweetly satisfying as the taste of the fruit on his tongue. He realizes it’s been awhile since he actually ate something and tasted it.

The apple is gone in a matter of minutes, and Steve finds that he feels strangely calm.

“What kind of apple was that?” He asks, chasing the sticky juice off of his fingers.

Steve remembers the few apples he had growing up in depressed Brooklyn; they were bruised, mealy, overripe little things. He’d never liked them much.

“Hell if I know,” Sam replies, brows rising. “Got ‘em from a friend. I’ll tell him you liked them, though. Maybe find out where he bought them.”

Steve nods. “Sam?”

“Mm?”

“I—thanks. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just stop trying to get yourself killed.”

. . .

 

“Hey, Cap?”

Later that same day, Steve looks up from the book he’s had his nose in for the last hour and a half.

Sam’s sister gave it to him when she visited last. It’s called _The Bluest Eye*_ , and it’s a beautiful, tenderly-crafted story told through the eyes of a 9-year-old African American girl about brutal societal structure of the United States in 1941.

It’s been a hell of a read so far—Steve is angry and heartbroken for the young girls in the book, for their families. He wonders if things are really so much better now, or if people only know to better disguise their ugly ideas about those different from themselves.

Sam is standing in the doorway, half-in, half-out of the living room, wearing a bemused expression.

“Regina is gonna be ecstatic that you’re reading that,” he says, and Steve offers a watery half-smile in return.

“Tell her it’s incredible. Life-ruining, but incredible.”

Sam comes all the way into the room, heaves himself into one of the plush armchairs.

“Can I tell her it made you cry?”

Steve shrugs, searching for a scrap of paper or something flat to mark his page with.

“Oh, this is nothing. You should have seen me two chapters ago,” Steve nods toward the sizable mountain of crumpled, used kleenex.

“Man, and I thought you cried a lot when we watched _Grave of the Fireflies_ ,” Sam shakes his head, eyebrows raised high.

Steve has discovered, since waking, that the extent of damage wrought by the War went further than he could ever have dreamed.

While he lay unconscious in ice like some lost denizen of Atlantis, the American government dropped bombs on Japan that killed tens of thousands of civilians. Bombs that left evil, lingering effects long after they’d detonated.

Never one to turn down another helping of guilt, Steve watches these films, reads these books.

It’s almost the perfect solution; drowning his own pain in the more valid, more intense pain of others.

Steve finds he prefers atonement and suffering to the alternative.

“The apples were from your boy, Rogers.” Sam says suddenly, not bothering to beat around the bush.

Steve hears the words, but they don’t quite make sense. His brain plays them over, but still they are met with blank inability to compute.

“My—wait, what?”

“The apples. Barnes broke in here and left ‘em on the counter.” Sam takes care to spell it out, like Steve is very, very stupid. Steve can’t argue with him on that.

“But…how?” Steve feels weak and shaky, too hot—like he’s going to throw up.

“He’s been living on the roof of our building for a couple of weeks, maybe longer. Only reason I even checked is because of those damn apples.”

A million questions immediately start elbowing each other on Steve’s tongue, jostling to be the first he asks.

_Why is he on the roof?_

_How did he get into the house?_

_Does he have enough to eat?_

_Does he have a blanket?_

_Did he say anything?_

“How does he—is he okay?”

Sam makes a yes and no gesture with his hand.

“He’s living rough, real rough. Skittish, looks like he hasn’t slept in a long time. I think he thinks he’s watching over you or something. But,” Sam looks like he desperately wants to roll his eyes, but refrains, “He _did_ say it was cool for me to tell you the apples were from him.”

Steve feels like he might pass out.

He has to fight with the overwhelming urge to sprint up the stairs to the roof, just to see for himself that it’s true.

“He was kind of a mother hen, wasn’t he?” Sam asks, grinning suddenly.

This knocks Steve for a loop.

Blinking in mild surprise, a startled chuckle manages to sneak out.

“ _Yeah_. Yeah, he really was. Jesus, he never let up. Always fussin’ over me.” Steve shakes his head, smiles ruefully. “But how’d you know that?”

Sam’s grin goes from amused to smug. He laughs, rich and warm, the sound filling the quiet space.

“ _Ha!_ Knew it,” he says, reaching for the lever to deploy the armchair’s recliner. “Dude barely said three sentences to me, but he made damn sure to let me know you needed fruit in your diet.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that. His heart feels like it’s been kicked back to life.

He knows that hope is a dangerous thing, but he can’t help it.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , there is something left in the smoldering ruins of Bucky’s mind that made him remember Steve.

It’s selfish, not to mention foolish, but now that the possibility is there, Steve’s mind has wrapped around it with no hope of letting it go.

He knows he shouldn’t, but he feels better.

There might still be a chance.

“I—he remembered my name?” Is all Steve manages to say, still trying in vain to quell the flickering little freshly-struck match of maybe in his heart.

When Steve glances at Sam, he sees a warmth, a kind of knowing in his friend’s face.

“Yeah, man. Don’t tell anyone, but, I think I might’ve been wrong.” Sam says, flashing a toothy, white smile Steve’s way as he reaches for the television remote.

“About what?”

“Awhile back, I told you he wasn’t the kind you save. Pretty sure I spoke too soon.”

Steve knows this should not be enough to make him feel lighter than he has in months (hell, maybe even years.)

He knows, but he doesn’t care.

Bucky remembered his name.

. . .

Steve spends a lot of time wondering what it will be like when he is face to face with Bucky again.

Will there be tears, yelling? Will Bucky blame Steve for what happened? Will it be awkward?

(Steve really doesn’t think he could handle if it was awkward.)

Some nights, he lays awake just running through possible scenarios and their outcomes.

Every morning, Steve wakes up and thinks that today could be the day.

 

In all the hundred-some hypothetical scenarios Steve had imagined, having Bucky bust through the kitchen window above the sink, catching both him and Sam totally by surprise was not one of them.

Hissing in pain when he tries to move too quickly, Steve is momentarily rendered speechless by the reality of the dirty, feral, sharp-eyed incarnation of James Buchanan Barnes in the middle of his kitchen.

“Um, okay,” Sam says from somewhere to Steve’s right.

For Steve, time and space cease to exist.

All that is real is the ghost in his house, staring at him with wild, haunted eyes from behind filthy, matted hair.

“Bucky?” Steve says his name so soft, unable to believe it and unwilling to risk him away with loud noise.

Steve isn’t sure what to do now. He wants to wrap his arms around Bucky and tell him, beg him never to leave again.

He wants to say a million things, but his voice won’t seem to work.

His hands tremble from the adrenaline and the hope and the utter relief.

When Bucky (because there is no denying that this is Bucky, now, or at least more Bucky than the Soldier) says Steve’s name like it’s a plea for something greater, Steve knows that his name has never been so important is it is coming from those lips, in that voice.

He knows he shouldn’t, but he has to try.

Steve puts his arms around Bucky, disgusting and broken and perfect as he is, and hopes that Bucky will understand.

Several minutes or several years pass, but there is a glorious, agonizing moment when Bucky becomes an active participant in the embrace, bringing his arms up around Steve’s back.

Steve can’t hold back the little gasp, the whimper that vibrates low in his throat.

He holds onto Bucky for as long as he can, pulling back only because he’s exhausted.

“You…you’re hurt,” Bucky says, voice rusty and awful.

Steve thinks it might be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

“‘M _fine_ , Buck. ’S’nothing serious.”

The response is one that comes thoughtlessly, from years of conditioning, of black eyes and busted lips.

Steve sees the muscles in Bucky’s face slowly arrange themselves into a shaky version of a familiar frown. His heart feels like it might burst.

“You should be more careful,” Bucky says, and Steve could weep, he’s so glad.

Steve smiles at Bucky, though his eyes sting and his throat feels raw.

He is at once both happier than he’s ever been, and terrified of fucking this up somehow, of losing Bucky a third time.

 

Steve resolves, a determined set to his jaw, not to fuck up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ^_^
> 
>  
> 
> *The Bluest Eye is a novel by Toni Morrison, and I read it a tad too young (fourth grade), but it was so heavy and intense and real. 
> 
> I like the idea of Steve Rogers trying to become sensitive to other cultures and aware of their past and present struggles.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a lot of anxiety. There's that old worthless complex creeping back to darken his door again.
> 
> (As if it ever left.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a super speedy little chapter I dashed off because it's my day off and it's rainy and gloomy and I wanted to feel productive somehow. 
> 
> Enjoy! ^_^

Steve, of course, fucks up plenty.

 

 

Steve feels like he’s walking on eggshells that are also land-mines.

He thinks he might stop breathing for a beat when Bucky says he missed Steve, too.

Watching Bucky eat would be funny if it weren’t so heartbreaking. He’s clearly been starved—Steve recalls bitterly the files detailing the many ways HYDRA used to inflict pain and teach lessons. Deprivation was a favorite.

 

The first night is exhausting—not to mention horribly, desperately awkward in a one-sided way when Steve essentially has to bathe Bucky—and Steve is sick with the fear that he won’t be able to do this.

He doesn’t know what to make of the fact that Bucky crawls into bed with him like some disjointed echo of how they used to be.

He doesn’t know what to say, and so, he says nothing.

But, after the misstep and the Soldier’s hands around his throat, Steve finds himself inexplicably with his arms full of a warm, soap-scented Bucky.

Taking care to be gentle, Steve rubs slow, deliberate circles on Bucky’s back. His heart gives a shudder in his chest, and tears sting the corners of his eyes because _jesus_ , when was the last time Bucky was touched without cruelty?

 

After that first night, Steve takes extra-extra care with Bucky, making sure never to move to suddenly or speak too loudly. Not poking around where he oughtn’t. One question at a time.

It’s shaky at first, but like most things, it’s a process.

. . .

“You can help yourself to anything on these shelves, okay, Buck?” Steve has been showing Bucky around the brownstone.

Bucky seems to take most things in stride, his expression never changing except to frown.

There are moments, though, when a glimmer of his old rakish self escapes, a little Brooklyn creeps into his accent or phrasing, and Steve wonders which of them is more surprised by it.

“The other shelves are Sam’s stuff—Sam is the guy I live with, you’ll meet him later. You’ll like him, Buck, I know you will.”

Bucky is still staring at the contents of the refrigerator, eyes round and questioning.

“This is…Steve, this is so _much_.” he breathes, wondrous.

Everything that happened to Steve before the war, during, after—all of it is worth it for the secret, pleased look on Bucky’s face when he bites into the remaining apple, crisp and bright.

. .

“It’s okay, Buck, nobody’s mad or anything, I swear. Just—please, let me in?” Steve tries to keep the desperation out of his voice, tries not to think about all the horrible things Bucky could be doing to himself behind the locked door of his room.

Bucky has been living at Steve and Sam’s place for a little under a month.

From what Sam said, the buzz of Sam’s electric shaver must have triggered something in Bucky, made him revert back to the Soldier. The only casualties were a lamp neither of them liked much, and one of the hardwood floorboards, which ended up with an indelible scuff.

In the grand scheme of things, Steve thinks he could actually consider this a win.

Obviously, there are bound to be bad days— _christ_ , Steve’d be even dumber than he looks if he thought it would all be smooth sailing—but not being able to lay eyes on Bucky makes him nervous, agitated. Steve can hear shuffling around, so he knows that Bucky is still alive, still in the room. He hasn’t flown the coop.

Sighing, Steve decides to try a different approach.

He roots around in his bag hanging up by the front door for his sketchpad and one of those fancy ink-pens Natasha brought him back from Prague.

Sitting cross-legged like a little kid outside the closed door of the guest bedroom, Steve starts to draw.

Steve’s never been so good at talking, at fixing things with his words. Sure, he’s been known to give an impassioned speech or two, but when it’s really important, he’s always felt unsure and clumsy. With drawing, he can say whatever he wants in the slope and thickness of his lines, in how lightly he touches pen to paper. Steve can draw little cartoons of himself with question marks over his head, of a frowning, unreadable Bucky (complete with scruff and cybernetic arm) hiding in a fort made of blankets and pillows.

Below the little doodles of himself and Bucky, Steve draws a picture of a sandwich and a bowl of soup, a cup of tea and a dish of ice cream and writes _Hungry?_ under it.

Then, he slides it under the door and waits. He isn’t left waiting long; the sound of this new Bucky’s quiet, huff of a laugh is followed by the sound of desk drawers opening and hasty pen on paper.

A minute or two later, the paper is pushed back out to Steve from under the door, and Steve practically rips it in his eagerness to see what Bucky’s said.

_You’re such a punk._

Steve feels like his face might split in two with the force of his grin.

Then, he notices the small postscript under his own drawing of lunch.

_P.S. You can come in. Bring tea please._

The ‘please’ looks like it was added as an afterthought, slightly spaced further away from the other words, but Steve couldn’t care less.

He scrambles to the kitchen in search of a mug and that soothing herbal tea Bruce gave him awhile back. When Steve returns, tea in hand, to knock lightly on Bucky’s door, he realizes he’s nervous. It hits him right in the gut to think that he might not be standing on solid ground with the person he used to know better than anyone in the universe.

“It’s not locked,” comes Bucky’s muffled reply, and twisting the knob, Steve finds that this is true. He pokes his head in, scanning absently for any damage or disarray. Bucky is peering out at him from under a heap of blankets. Mentally sighing in relief, Steve holds the mug of tea up so Bucky can see it through the cracked door.

“I brought you some tea. I, um, didn’t know if you’d want it sweet or not, so I brought the jar of honey just in case.”

Bucky, from his nest of comforters and pillows, gives an honest-to-god snort.

“You comin’ in, Rogers, or are you just gonna hover halfway through the door all day?”

It’s one of those moments where Bucky’s old personality makes a surprise appearance, followed (as they often are) by a startled pause from both men.

“Sheesh, gimme a break,” Steve recovers with a laugh, rolls his eyes and grins, stepping all the way inside the room and closing the door behind him. “Where do you want this?” He asks, pointing at the steaming mug in his hand.

Bucky extends an arm from his fortress, makes a little grabby-hand motion in the general direction of the tea.

“Careful, it’s pretty hot,” Steve warns, handing the mug and saucer over anyway.

Bucky glares at him, but it’s an annoyed glare, and that’s as good as a smile in Steve’s book.

As long as he never has to see that haunted, cold, emotionless look from when he was the Soldier, Steve’ll take anything.

“Honey?” Steve remembers the slightly sticky plastic squeeze-bottle in his other hand.

“Yes, darling?” Bucky drawls, sassy as you please, and it’s exactly the kind of wisecrack he’d have made back before the war, back when they were two sides of the same coin.

There’s a brief pause, and Steve isn’t sure how to react (sometimes, Bucky doesn’t like when his old brain takes over) but he can’t keep a tiny, hysterical giggle from escaping.

The slow smile that spreads across Bucky’s face, the little spark of light in his eyes at the realization that he’s made a joke, the way he clutches at his mug of tea with both hands so it doesn’t spill; Steve is hit with a wave of gratefulness so strong it leaves him weak in the knees. He sets the honey on the dresser so he can sit down on the edge of the bed and laugh.

When his chuckles have subsided, Steve glances back at Bucky and finds him smiling softly, almost shyly.

He wishes he knew how to make this new Bucky smile all the time. Then, he remembers why Bucky is in here in the first place. 

“Look, about the lamp,” Steve begins, but Bucky’s frown stops him.

“Steve, I…can we not talk about it? I know I fucked up, I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me, I—”

“—there is _nothing_ wrong with you, Buck. All I was gonna say is that I get it, okay? Sam, too. We’ve both got plenty of stories involving flashbacks and broken appliances.”

Steve knows he sounds just this side of too earnest, but Bucky’s shoulders relax a little, and he can’t bring himself to care.

Bucky sips at his tea tentatively at first, then, finding he likes the taste, takes a longer pull.

“Tell me one of yours?” He asks quietly, eyes meeting Steve’s briefly, then darting quickly away.

Steve lifts a corner of the blanket heap, kicks off his sneakers, and crawls under, too.

It reminds him of the forts the two of them used to build when they still thought they could be anything and that the worst that could happen was clapping erasers or writing lines.

Now, the walls that separate Bucky from Steve seem a mile high with booby-traps and no footholds for climbing. Steve knows that to be rid of these walls for good, he will have to dismantle it brick by brick, with his bare hands. He will do this, with sweat-soaked brow, and bloodied, broken nails.

“Okay, well, for starters, lemme tell you about the half-baked idea SHIELD had for easing me into the future…”

 

They stay in Bucky’s room for the rest of the day, with Steve doing most of the talking, and Bucky warm and solid beside him.

 

They fall asleep under the nest of blankets, neither one waking ’til morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading uwu
> 
> more soon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are good days, and bad days. 
> 
> Sam Wilson should be sainted. 
> 
> Steve needs to stop beating himself up.
> 
> (He reasons that since the serum, he doesn't get pummeled nearly enough; he's got to make up for it himself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad those of you reading it are enjoying! 
> 
> Feedback is so, so welcome. I love hearing from everyone. ^_^

When Steve found Bucky, delirious and weak, strapped to a crude exam table in the HYDRA base at Azzano, his stomach had dropped.

It terrified him, seeing untouchable, reliable Bucky Barnes so close to death.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Steve had thought frantically, rushing to cut the straps that bound Bucky.

Steve was the one who almost died all the time, who wore sickly pallor like a veil and clammy sweat like a second skin.

Bucky was the one who was strong and tall, whose knuckles were always scraped from fighting; he never got sick or hurt.

The only thing worse than how Bucky looked was the way he looked at _Steve_ , first like he didn’t recognize him, then like he thought he was dreaming it up.

No.

Worse still, the horrible, ragged desperation in Bucky’s voice when Steve had told him to save himself, like being tortured and held prisoner by HYDRA wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to Bucky. Like letting Steve be a sacrifice was the thing that would break him.

What choice did Steve have, really?

What option was there, other than taking a breathless, running leap over climbing flames?

 

Bucky’d have done it for him.

. .

There was a shadow in Bucky’s eyes that hadn’t been there before, though he tried to hide it.

Steve wanted to ask him what happened, but he never could find the right moment. The longer he let it go, the more he realized the likelihood that he didn’t want to know.

When Bucky shouted at him, scolded him like a child for accepting an untested, radical chemical treatment, it touched something raw and sore in Steve. All he’d wanted was to be useful for once in his life, to be able to repay the universe for keeping him alive for this long.

(He realized, of course he did, that ‘the universe’ was not the one who had kept him alive. Bucky, with all his stolen medicines and bedside vigils, extra shifts and body heat; he’d been bare-knuckle boxing with Death, keeping him at bay and away from Steve’s door for years.)

When the fight had gone out of Bucky, they’d laid down together like they used to, and Bucky let Steve try his best to take care of him.

 

It was clumsy, of course; Steve didn't have a hell of a lot of experience being the one who did the fussing.

Maybe that's why they ended up spooned the way they did when Steve was small enough for Bucky to wrap his body around.

Maybe, Steve had realized that to help Bucky, he needed to let Bucky feel like he was still taking care of Steve.

 

Steve had wished he knew how to put the words together to tell Bucky that he'd always need him.

 

. .

Sam and Bucky get along well. Steve is endlessly grateful to whatever powers may exist in the universe for Sam Wilson.

He wonders how he has been so lucky in his lifetime, to meet more than one person as loyal and solid and understanding as the friends he has made.

Sam has a gift, a sort of emotional intuition, an empathy which he wields with impossible skill and aplomb.

When he first met Bucky (properly, as in, not being shot by him) Sam gave him an easy smile and stuck out his left hand for Bucky to shake. Bucky had stared at it, unsure, but something in Sam’s face (and really, Steve should buy Sam some kind of ridiculous gift of thanks) must have reassured him, because he reached out to bridge the gap with his metal arm, shaking hands slowly.

Steve realized with a fresh, intense wave of affection for Sam Wilson, that he’d done it deliberately; he was telling Bucky, without the tedium of words, that his arm wasn’t a weapon, that Sam didn’t see him that way.

Now, on a lazy Saturday afternoon two months later, Steve comes home to the brownstone with groceries to find Sam in the recliner and Bucky sprawled across the sofa, engaged in an animated discussion. About wedding dresses, apparently.

(A few weeks ago, Bucky had discovered TLC, specifically _Say Yes to the Dress_ and other nonsensical programming.

He’d stormed into the bathroom where Steve was just finishing shaving and practically dragged him into the living room to point accusingly at the television.

“Steve," he'd gaped, eyes comically round, "These people are paying _six thousand bucks_ for a wedding dress!”

 Steve had to explain that nowadays, people had different priorities, and weddings had become some sort of bizarre, expensive spectacle.

Bucky had grumbled about _this crummy future_ and _not what I went to war for_ , but in the end, he’d settled back onto the sofa and watched five episodes in a row.)

Sighing, Steve sets the paper bags down on the counter and starts putting things away, listening fondly to the sound of his two best friends squawking indignantly at various offenses committed by the dress-buyers and their families.

It’s a good day, clearly, and for that, Steve is grateful.

(Earlier, in the morning, he’d woken to an uncharacteristically eager Bucky hovering over him and asking if Steve would help him shave.

Steve had gone slow and tried to concentrate on the task at hand rather than the close proximity of his face to Bucky’s. Bucky had closed his eyes, clearly placing a huge amount of trust in Steve, the weight of which made Steve inwardly stagger.

When he was finished, the residue and stubble wiped away, he’d been momentarily stunned by the familiar face staring back at him.

Bucky spent a long time looking in the mirror, but when he came out of the bathroom, he flashed Steve a genuine smile before disappearing down the hall.

Steve can’t help counting it as a little victory.)

“Yo, Gramps, did you get those chips like I asked you to?” Sam calls from the other room.

“Oh, I’m ‘Gramps’, huh? I got your chips, but now I’m kinda thinking I might just eat them myself,” Steve answers, grinning to himself as he puts the bag of chips into the pantry.

“Don’t you dare, Rogers!” Sam comes bounding into the kitchen, like he actually thought there was even the slightest possibility that Steve would follow through on his threat.

“I got some of that salsa you like, too.” Steve waves a hand at the fridge.

“The hell’s ‘salsa’?” Bucky says from the doorway, leaning against the frame and looking painfully like his old self for a moment. Sam throws his hands up in the air, looking heavenward.

“Barnes, is there no limit to the tragedy?” He scrubs a hand over his face, laughing. “It’s for dipping chips into, or putting on food. It’s delicious, sit down, because you’re about to eat some.”

Steve steps bemusedly out of the way so Sam can grab the plastic container of fresh salsa, a bowl from the cabinet above the sink, and the bag of special tortilla chips he’d requested. When the chips and salsa are set on the table in front of a highly skeptical Bucky, Steve wonders nervously if there is potentially anything triggering about snacks.

_Get a grip, Rogers._

“Okay, so, you take a chip,” Sam demonstrates, widening his eyes and speaking slowly like he’s a children’s television show host, “And you scoop up the salsa with it, like so.”

Bucky watches intently, a small line of concentration forming between his eyebrows. He looks mildly surprised when Sam shoves the entire chip into his mouth, crunching happily, but has no qualms about trying it for himself.

Steve’s heart clenches as he watches Bucky’s expression shift from quizzical to pleased.

He remembers all the things he tried for the first time after waking up here in the future, and wishes with a sharp twinge behind his ribs that Bucky had been there to try them, too.

Together, Sam, Steve, and Bucky pretty much eat the entire bag of chips between them.

Steve resolves to share his list of things with Bucky; there’s still so many items that Steve hasn’t even begun to do or try or learn about.

They watch a movie at Sam’s insistence called the _Princess & the Frog_, which has both Steve and Bucky rapt and wondrous as little children.

Something about a princess who has scraped and saved and worked herself to the bone just to achieve her dreams speaks to Steve far more than one who sits around looking pretty and waiting on a fairy godmother or a handsome prince.

He wonders if they would ever make a cartoon about Peggy Carter. He thinks, absently, that maybe he’ll draw it like a comic, one of those stunningly-inked graphic novels that Sam showed him.

The thought of drawing Peggy as the strong, clever, commanding hero she was makes Steve smile to himself.

 

When Bucky curls up on what has become his side of Steve’s bed that night, Steve says a silent prayer of thanks to whomever may be listening.

. .

 

It is the worst day yet.

Bucky woke up skittish and agitated, but Steve had tried to be positive and gentle, hoping they could push through.

Now, cleaning blood from the palm of his hand and picking shards of glass from his skin with tweezers, Steve feels like giving up. It’s not so much that the wound hurts—Steve knows it’ll be healed by tomorrow—as the memory of Bucky’s eyes and his expression, vacant and terrible, as he lashed out at Steve.

Bucky hadn’t responded to his name, and had started speaking Russian in a cold monotone that makes Steve sick to remember it.

When he’d come back to himself, the anguish that replaced that dead-eyed stare was even worse. Bucky had looked at the mess around him, looked at the red on Steve’s hand, the bruise surely blossoming on Steve’s jaw, and turned tail and run.

Sam reassures Steve over the phone that Bucky will come back, that he isn’t gone forever, but Steve can’t help feeling quietly panicked.

He wishes he’d gone ahead and got ahold of a StarkPhone for Bucky, so he could call him or text him or—Steve _knows_ he’s freaking out, of course he does.

He just has no clue how to stop, how to fix this.

He tries to busy himself around the house, cleaning up the rest of the damage and starting on the laundry.

Maybe housework will take his mind off of the anxiety.

 

When Sam gets home from the VA, he finds Steve on hands and knees, frantically scrubbing at a spot on the porcelain of the bathtub that just won’t come out.

“Steve— _Steve!_ Dude, what happened?” Sam grabs ahold of Steve’s arm lightly, with just enough force to still his hand. “Bucky isn’t here, and you’re all Lady MacBeth-ing it up in the bathroom. Explanation. _Now_.”

Steve drops the scrub brush and turns so he’s sitting cross-legged on the freshly-bleached tile, back resting against the side of the tub.

“I—he was having a not-good day this morning and—” Steve stumbles over the words, biting them out one by one, staring hard at his lap. “—Sam, I fucked up. I should have, I didn’t…”

Sam exhales, rubs a hand over his face, then sits down on the floor opposite Steve.

“Lemme guess: he wasn’t himself, he hurt you on accident, then he realized what he did and hightailed it out of here, right?”

Steve looks up, hope and self-loathing and helpless concern are written all across his face.

“He’ll be back.” Sam says with a certainty Steve can only wish for. “It’s like I keep telling you, Rogers; recovery is a process. And your boy Barnes, he’s got a lot of recovering to do.”

Steve nods, considering this new(ish) information.

“And,” Sam fixes Steve with that no-nonsense look of his, “Before you start in on that whole ‘ _it’s my fault I’m the worst_ ’ thing you always do—yeah, I know all about your guilt complex—give yourself a damn break, Steve. You _do_ know you don’t gotta be Captain America for this, right?”

It shouldn’t be as earth-shattering a revelation as it is; Steve knows, logically, that he and the hero he pretends to be are not actually the same.

Still, hearing it spoken so plainly feels almost like a benediction. Like Steve’s been waiting for permission to be a human.

Not a second after thinking that, Steve wonders dizzily if that’s what Bucky needs; permission to be a human.

Steve tries not to tear himself up over the conflicting desire to grant Bucky that permission, and the overwhelming feeling of his perceived inadequacy to do just that.

Who is Steve Rogers to be handing out salvation?

“Okay?” Sam asks, gazing levelly at Steve from the bathroom floor the same as he would if they were in chairs at a desk or next to each other in the back of a SHIELD transport vehicle; gauging Steve’s reactions and measuring their honesty.

Steve exhales shakily through his nose. “Yeah, I—okay.”

Sam looks at him for another long moment, searching.

Then, he nods, seemingly more to himself than to Steve.

“Good.” He says firmly, before reverting to his usual relaxed, amiable self. “Now let’s get some food going. _I’ll_ cook, even though I worked all day, but only ‘cause I don’t want your nasty, bleach-soaked hands contaminating everything.”

 

The rest of the evening goes okay. Steve manages to keep his nervous clock-checking and window-glancing to a minimum, and Sam is kind enough to pretend as though he doesn’t notice Steve practically jumping out of his seat every time he hears something he thinks might be Bucky.

Before he turns in for the night, Sam tells Steve just one more time to _relax, breathe_. Steve struggles, but tries his best.

He lays in his bed and tries not to think about how used to Bucky’s presence he’s become in such a short time.

Maybe it’s got to do with muscle memory; all those nights they spent huddled up, legs tangled, snoring in each others’ ears. Maybe the body doesn’t forget, just like Steve’s mind never could, either.

For seventy years, Steve slept under snow and ice with no one to take the chill from his bones or dig their pointy elbows into his ribs when he took up too much space.

For the two-and-a-half years after he woke up in the shiny, terrifying future, Steve’s slept with the ghost of a dotted outline beside him in the shape of a body he’d thought was lost forever.

(When he’d crashed the aircraft into the water, when he’d realized that the slow, creeping numbness would eventually get the better of him, Steve had laid down and thought fleetingly that his and Bucky’s lives both ended with snow and ice.

Poetic, he’d smiled to himself, eyes closed. It felt like falling asleep, freezing did; still, Steve had wished that Bucky was there by his side. Steve wondered, with his last few moments of consciousness, if Bucky hadn’t fallen from that train car, whether he’d still be spending his last minutes alone.

He knew that Bucky’d have been there with him, going down with the ship.)

Now, Steve has miraculously been granted his impossible wish—Bucky has been next to him almost every night for two months—and he can’t come to grips with the thought of spending one more night with only empty space and cold sheets on the other side of the bed.

He falls asleep, finally worrying himself to exhaustion, around midnight.

His dreams are sharp and in greyscale; like snowy mountains speeding past an open train car door.

. .

Steve wakes in a cold sweat to the sensation of someone climbing into his bed, weight dipping the mattress a little.

“Buck?” He whispers, hoping that he isn’t still asleep, dreaming this.

“Scoot—you’re hoggin’ the whole bed,” comes the gruff reply that sends relief flooding through Steve’s entire body.

Steve does as he’s told, shifting to make more space for Bucky, who lifts the edge of the comforter and settles himself into the space he’s claimed without meaning to.

There is a long hallway of silence that stretches endlessly on for several minutes.

Steve lays flat on his back, going back and forth about whether he should say anything or not. Then, Bucky clears his throat.

“Look—I—Steve, you don’t know how sorry I am,” he says, voice rough, just above a whisper.

It makes Steve’s chest ache, makes him want to do something stupid, like brush his thumb across Bucky’s cheek, or stroke his hair.

Instead, he settles for words.

“Don’t—just—you don’t have to apologize to me, Buck. Not for this stuff. Never, okay?”

Another long pause.

“Couldn’t sleep up on the roof,” Bucky says in a small voice, sounding younger than ever. “Jesus, Steve, I’m all fucked up. I--I _hurt_ you, and--”

“Don’t say that, Buck. I—I want you to know that it’s all okay, alright? Even…even when it’s not okay. Does that—am I making sense?”

When Bucky doesn’t answer, Steve fears he’s made an error, overstepped the tentative bounds and ruined it all yet again.

But Bucky doesn’t answer with words all the time; Steve forgets this, this new quirk his Bucky has acquired.

Instead of saying anything, Bucky burrows into Steve’s side, resting his cheek against Steve’s chest. Head over Steve’s heart, separated only by thin cotton and Steve’s tissue and bone.

Steve brings his arm up to pull Bucky closer, lightheaded with relief and physical contact.

Bucky settles into the crook of Steve’s arm and falls almost instantly, blissfully asleep.

 

Apparently, Steve thinks before passing out as well, someone in the universe must like Steve Rogers just a little bit.

They keep giving him second chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, it's like I'm incapable of writing Steve or Bucky without copious amounts of angst.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a lot of issues, and I'm not talking about comic books.

Every day, Bucky gets a little better.

Sometimes, he remembers a lot of things all in a rush, eyes bright and excited as he relays these recovered scenes and preferences to Steve for validation of their factuality. Other days, he stays in bed.

Or breaks things (they’re working on that).

Or tries to convince Steve by shouting and brandishing weapons that he is dangerous and not to be trusted.

Steve tries not to get his hopes up too much with the good memories Bucky gets back, with the mundane snatches of their lives before the War. He tries not to let the bad, the awful, the gut-wrenching ones lay him out flat, either. Sometimes, it’s hard for Steve. Okay, _a lot_ of the time.

Steve thinks that it might be because it used to be, he knew James Buchanan Barnes better than he knew himself. He knew every tic and twitch and huff and sigh, every grin and every roll of Bucky’s eyes; Steve had it all catalogued and filed in a library taking up one corner of his brain.

Now, though, it’s all different.  This new Bucky is strange, unknowable. He is full of thorns and hurts and hidden sand-traps; a confusing labyrinth that Steve cannot solve. Just when he thinks he’s on the right track, Steve finds himself at a dead end, or completely turned around. Going in circles.

There are days when Steve has to bite his tongue until he tastes blood to keep himself from saying things he’d have said before. Days when he turns to laugh with Bucky, because something’s reminded him of that time they ruined their Sunday clothes and got scolded to within an inch of their lives, and then he realizes that Bucky is staring blankly at him because there are empty spaces and gaping holes littering the landscape of his memory.

Like someone took a pair of scissors to a priceless painting and punched it full of holes. No maiden’s face, no blooming rose, no castle rising up from the background. A work of art, ruined.

It’s like being punched in the gut, sometimes, when Steve gets a flash of joy, bright and true because Bucky is here—and then immediately feels that lightness turn leaden when he remembers just how broken Bucky is.

...And then, there are the days that Steve doesn’t want to get up, either.

When the guilt eats at him and he wishes that Bucky’d just let him sink in the Potomac, let him be weighed down by his sins.

 _All those years_ , Steve thinks, sick with self-loathing. All those years while he slept under ice, and Bucky was having his mind, his body whipped and beaten into submission. Having his memories taken away. If Steve had been able to cut through his grief with the sharp, clever machete of logic, he’d have been looking for Bucky’s body in the Alps. They’d have found something, some trace of HYDRA, and been able to rescue Bucky.

Been able to stop him from being made into the Soldier.

Steve thinks, twisting the knife into his own side, about the smug voice of Zola through the computers. About how his life had amounted to nothing. How he was not enough.

He couldn’t stop Bucky from falling, so he thought he’d stopped HYDRA. He thought he would die so that everyone else could live.

Some Jesus-martyr-complex Steve's got, right?

Instead, HYDRA survived and thrived, insidious within the shadows and feeding on the rot beneath the festering floorboards of SHIELD. Instead, Steve hadn’t even been able to stay dead.

Once he gets going like this, it’s hard to stop. Hard to stop blaming himself, hard to feel proud of anything he’s done.

But then, Steve will catch Bucky looking at him with a small, wondrous expression, like he’s—like he’s grateful for _Steve_ , or something. And that’s all it takes for Steve to be able to push the door closed and twist the lock on the closet of sprawling, baying beasts that live in his mind.

Steve knows he has to be strong, now, for Bucky.

God knows Bucky was always being strong for him.

 

..

The main thing, the dangerous thing, is how comfortable Steve gets, how settled.

It’s as if his brain has decided, with a casual air of finality, that this is how things are now and Bucky is back to stay. That bone-deep comfort Steve feels knowing (or, at least, believing) that Bucky once again a permanent fixture in Steve’s life— _that_ is what terrifies him the most.

The day Steve gets a text message from a blocked number that reads _you’re not good at keeping secrets, rogers. i’m coming over to assess the damage :)_ is the day he feels the old familiar tentacles of panic curling invisibly around him.

The text is, obviously, from Natasha, and Steve has no idea what to expect. Is she still affiliated closely enough with SHIELD that she’ll try to take Bucky away? Will he remember her from their time in the Red Room together, will it trigger Bucky? Steve’s head throbs and his stomach is in knots.

He finds Bucky on the couch in the living room, absorbed in some weird cartoon about two kids and their uncle and conspiracy theories.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says gently, making sure to step heavily as he comes through the doorway, so that Bucky isn’t startled by his sudden appearance.

“You ever been to the West Coast, Stevie?” Bucky asks, craning his head around to look at Steve over the back of the couch.

For a moment, Steve is stupefied.

The easy roll of the long-lost nickname from the tongue of this new, confusing Bucky has him dumbstruck with longing. It shouldn’t make his stomach flip, his breath catch in his chest, to hear a childish diminutive spoken like a spell into the room. But, the thing is, it does.

Because since as long as Steve can remember, _Stevie_ has had some kind of sticky-charm pull on Steve to make him feel warm all over and bashful as all hell.

Recovering, less smoothly than he’d like, Steve tries to sound casual, light.

"Only California, but not for long. It's, um, on my list."

Bucky nods, satisfied with this answer.

Steve regroups, then tries again.

“Um, remember how I told you about the, uh, group of people I work with?” He asks, trying not to look as nervous as he feels.

Bucky raises one eyebrow and looks unimpressed.

“Well,” Steve continues, hellbent on getting it out before he loses his nerve or Natasha shows up, “One of them is coming over here in a little bit. She, ah, well—”

“—She knows you got me stashed here, and she’s coming to see if I’m too dangerous.” Bucky snorts, stretching one leg out to rest on the coffee table.

Steve fumbles inelegantly for a response. “Shit, I—”

There’s a knock on the door, which is really just a courtesy when Natasha does it; she could get in twelve different ways, completely undetected.

Steve has the fleeting, crazy thought of taking Bucky and making a run for it. The knock comes again, and Bucky tilts his head, almost smirking.

“Ain’tcha gonna answer that? Wouldn’t want it to get around that Captain America has no manners,” he drawls, to which Steve has literally no reply.

He makes a small, choked sound before running to let Natasha inside.

She’s dressed more casually than Steve usually sees her, in leggings and a baggy shirt Steve feels certain he’s seen Clint wear, and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail.

“It’s not nice to keep a lady waiting, Rogers.” Natasha teases, glancing up at him with a coyness and curling smirk which Steve has come to recognize as the way Natasha does ‘friendly teasing.’

“I, um…yeah. Sorry,” Steve gestures for her to come inside, holding the door open for her.

She breezes past him, heading towards the living room with purpose. “Is he in there?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, and Steve isn’t sure he could give one, given how badly he’s flailing. He watches with bated breath from the doorway as Natasha and Bucky size each other up. Then, after an agonizingly long, tense moment, both of them turn to look at Steve, eerily in sync.

“You should go for awhile, Steve. I need to speak to James privately.”

Steve looks to Bucky, searching his expression for any hint of distress. Instead, he finds a calm neutrality.

“It’s fine, Stevie. Swear on my ma’s grave.”

“Aw, Buck, seriously? I oughtta box your ears, talking about your ma like that.”

And then, Steve finds himself wandering around the neighborhood aimlessly, replaying the conversation in his head over and over.

For a few seconds, it had been like they’d never been apart.

Steve decides those seconds are worth all the rest of it.

. . .

_New message from BLOCKED: Come back now. Bring food :)_

 

Steve wonders how many times the human body can be wound up as tight as he gets, then flooded with the endorphins of relief as often as his is. He wonders if it’s because he’s just naturally waiting for bad news, or if he’s got some kind of serum-enhanced chemical release.

On the way back home, Steve picks up two bags’ worth of food from the little Mexican place two blocks from the house, and reminds himself not to ask Bucky a million questions when Nat leaves.

He finds the two of them sitting at the dining table with a bottle of vodka between them, playing cards and sharing amiable almost-smiles. When Bucky sees Steve, his face actually lights up, and he sits up straighter in his chair.

“I remembered how we used to play cards, when it was too cold or too hot to go out. Natalia— _Natasha_ is teaching me a new game.”

Steve doesn’t know how to handle the feelings that well up at the sudden unguardedness of Bucky’s smile, or the fact that he remembered another good thing. He takes it in stride, setting the bags of food down on the counter and rummaging in the cabinet for plates.

“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to play with either one of you,” Steve says, setting plates down in front of Bucky and Natasha. “I know for a fact that you both cheat. Between the two of you, you’d take me for my last dime.”

“It was _one_ time, Steve,” Natasha rolls her eyes, reaching into one of the plain paper bags to retrieve her beloved enchiladas. “And if it’s any consolation, I actually felt kind of bad robbing a 90-year-old blind.”

Bucky’s sudden laugh is so real and warm and unexpected, that Steve can’t do anything but grin. He makes a mental note to give a gift to Natasha as well as Sam.

Sam, who comes home from work ten minutes later, expression going from vague surprise to _okay, I guess this is what we’re calling 'normal' now._

“I got you that whatchamacallit—tortas that you like, Sam,” Steve says, pointing to the remaining bag on the counter.

Bucky has eaten his entire burrito, and is now dipping spicy pickled vegetables into the scorchingly hot salsa Natasha always gets with her food. When Sam sits down to eat with them, Steve feels like something has shifted, something subtle but huge.

The four of them make surprisingly easy conversation, and Bucky seems more at ease than he has in weeks. Steve feels like getting down on his hands and knees to kiss the ground Natasha Romanoff walks on.

A little after dinner, Nat gives them each a kiss on the cheek goodbye—even Bucky, to Steve’s mild shock, who even makes a reciprocal purse with his lips—and leaves Steve to clean up the dishes.

Bucky wanders away to take a bath (he’s grown very fond of long soaks in the tub, now that he knows the hot water will never run out), and Sam fixes Steve with one of those spill it, Rogers looks that seemingly everyone Steve knows has mastered.

“Okay, I definitely missed something,” Sam says, draining the last of his beer.

Steve, who nods in agreement, soaps and rinses the dishes, throws away the trash from their dinner.

“We’re in the same boat there,” he tells Sam, grinning wryly. “Natasha kicked me out for two hours; I’ve got no clue what she said or did, just that I owe her a cake or something.”

Sam looks thoughtful, considering the information.

“Didn’t those files say that she—they knew each other for awhile, way back?” He asks, to which Steve shrugs.

“Yeah, I mean, I only know bits and pieces, but the gist I got was that they were—they were good for each other when everything else was horrible.”

He tries to sound normal, to keep himself impassive.

Something in Steve’s voice, Steve’s face, must give something away when he says this, though, because Sam is raising his eyebrows and shaking his head.

“Man, you know that doesn’t make you less important to him, right? I mean, that’s not something I have to tell you, on account of the fact that you already _know_ , right?” Sam stares pointedly at Steve, who looks away guiltily.

“I—I’m just glad that there was one person during—while he was—just one person who treated him like he was more than…”

Steve can’t bring himself to finish the sentence, partly because he knows Bucky is just in the next room, and partly because he doesn’t know how.

“Ugh. I swear to God, Steve, one of these days, I’m just gonna slap you upside the head when you get like this.” Sam rolls his eyes at Steve’s expression. “Oh, don’t give me that face. You know you’re all up in your own head, doubting everything and trying to make it your fault, as usual.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that.

He settles for throwing the towel he’s drying the dishes with at Sam’s face. Sam flings it right back, and it lands with a soft _plop_  over Steve’s head.

“Denial doesn’t suit you, bro!” He singsongs, leaving the kitchen.

 

Later, when he’s got Bucky pressed warm against his side, head growing fuzzy with sleep, Steve wonders what Sam meant by denial.

“I never forgot you, Steve,” Bucky says suddenly, snapping Steve out of his dazed pondering with an answer to a question Steve had long since convinced himself he didn’t want to ask.

“I—they _tried_ , over and over, but it never stuck. Whenever they…whenever I was out of the cryofreeze too long, I’d start asking about you, about where you were.” Bucky huffs out a laugh, sounding dreamy and half-awake. “Guess you’re in there too deep, huh?”

Steve’s heart clenches, though he wishes it wouldn’t. He should feel horrible, knowing now that he was the reason Bucky had to have his memory painfully scrubbed, over and over. He should feel horrible that he doesn’t feel horrible, but he can’t quite bring himself to.

“Natasha said they wanted you to kill me,” Bucky says sleepily, cheek mashed against Steve’s chest. Steve draws a shaky breath, in-out. 

“I couldn’t do it, Buck.” Steve’s voice is a rough, pained whisper. “I wouldn’t. Not ever.”

There’s a long, drawn-out pause. Then, a quiet, breathy laugh.

“Yeah, well, that’s ‘cause you’re a punk.”

Steve wants to say, _No, it’s because I’ve always loved you too much._

He wants to say, _No, it's because I can't live in a world where you're hurting._

Wants to say, _No, I would rather die than hurt you._

He knows that he doesn't have to say that last one, that it's an unspoken truth between them. Steve knows that Bucky's known it since Steve let his shield fall into the river.

Instead, he pulls Bucky in close, presses a kiss to the top of his hair, not caring for once about what it might give away.

 

That night, Steve’s dreams are warm and soft and they don’t hurt at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so happy it's the weekend, and that inspiration has once again struck. I know it's been kind of slow-moving with Steve's side of Bucky's recovery, but in A Single Silver Thread, I kind of sped through all that stuff due to plot and the ton of angst Bucky already had. 
> 
> I wanted to make Steve a character with more depth in this one, rather than just the sort of hallowed figure in Bucky's spotty memory that he was at first in the original fic. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading, and leaving comments and kudos, you are all beautiful and wonderful!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Steve ever realize that he needs therapy?
> 
> Not yet, no. 
> 
> But he's admitting things to himself; that's a start, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darlings--I promise that the next update will be full-ensemble. Life is v v hectic for me right now (ugh, getting one's affairs in order for studying abroad is a HEADACHE) but I shall soldier on!
> 
> Also, I've decided this story needs to be 20 chapters rather than 10, because clearly when I'm writing Steve, he's slow as molasses.

 

Since they’d started working together on missions, Natasha had tried to set Steve up with every eligible woman in the tri-state area.

“What about Mindy, from tech? She volunteers at a canine rescue and has a ton of dogs at home.”

“How do you feel about Naomi? You know, Naomi, the one with the gorgeous curly hair?”

“Hanalei from the billing office is single, she’d probably say yes if you asked her to dinner.”

Every last time, Steve would duck his head or give some lame excuse, some brush-off that he’d hoped seemed like he was just too shy. Natasha would regard him coolly each time, as if taking his measure and yet again readjusting her mental file folder on Steve Rogers.

He’d gone on a couple of dates, but they always ended with handshakes or warm (but wholly platonic) hugs. The women saw something in him that even for all his politeness and genuine interest in them as people, Steve could not hide. He’d thought himself lucky that he’d managed to keep it hidden from Natasha for so long.

Of course, then came the Soldier.

The mask had clattered to the pavement, and Steve’s whole world had been turned upside-down and pulled inside-out.

When they’d found a moment’s breathing time, Natasha had fixed Steve with a long, hard look.

Then, eyes softening, she’d said lowly, “Fucking hell, Rogers, you could have _said_.”

“Said what? What are we talking about, now?” Steve had been exhausted, crashing from all the adrenaline, blood turned molasses in his veins.

“Barnes. You loved him. You _love_ him,” Natasha had tilted her head, curious and catlike. “I wouldn’t have tried to set you up with all those women if I’d known.”

Steve had wiped a hand over his face, leaned back so he was resting against the wall.

“I’ve never even said it out loud,” he confessed, throwing all caution to the wind.

After all, they were probably going to die, weren’t they? Well, Steve amended, _he_ was probably going to die. If Bucky would come to kill him, if they would have to fight to the death, Steve was pretty sure it wasn’t hard to guess who would be the one dying.

In the small room, beaten and bruised, catching his breath with Natasha, Steve felt like this was his first time in the confession box since 1936.

“Sometimes, not saying things out loud is how we protect ourselves,” Natasha said evenly, glancing at Steve. “But,” she added, “Sometimes that’s how we end up hurting more.”

Taking a deep breath, Steve had nodded, staring straight ahead at the wall opposite.

“I won’t kill him, Nat.” He said quietly, jaw clenching. “I can’t.”

“And you’d kill me if I tried to do it for you, wouldn’t you?” Natasha asked, bemused.

Steve had winced apologetically, which had been answer enough.

“Definitely in the wrong business,” she’d said, leaning her head onto Steve’s shoulder.

Steve, for once, was starting to think he might agree. Maybe that wasn't so bad.

 . .

“Hang on, let me get the door—I thought you were gonna be _careful_ this time, Rogers.”

Sam sounds largely unimpressed as he helps a limping Steve through the door to the brownstone.

“Shut it, Wilson. Guy got the drop on me, what more do you want besides ‘I’m sorry’?”

“How ‘bout a ‘thank you for swooping in and saving my ass _again_ , Sam,’” Sam says, doing a very unflattering yet unfortunately accurate imitation of Steve.

Steve makes for one of the chairs at the kitchen table with a heavy roll of his eyes. He hadn’t meant to get caught in that explosion, really; maybe he should have been paying better attention, instead of beating one of the HYDRA agents to an ugly, unrecognizable pulp…

“Jesus, Mary an—the hell’d ya do, Rogers?”

Steve looks up to see Bucky in the doorway, dressed in a pair of Steve’s old sweatpants and a shirt bearing the logo from his shield. Wincing a little (his face hurts, _shit_ ; shrapnel will do that) Steve smiles and tries to sit up a little straighter.

“N-nothin’, Buck. I’m fine, just a scratch.” He pointedly ignores Sam’s loud snort.

“Captain Death-wish here thought he could outrun a bomb,” Sam tells Bucky, who turns back to Steve, horrified.

Steve shoots Sam a betrayed glare before attempting to placate the clearly concerned Bucky.

“ _Honestly_ , Bucky, I’ve had worse—”

“ _Jesus_ , Steve, when are you gonna learn?” Bucky hisses, exasperated.

Then, Steve finds himself being hauled up and marched into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet while Bucky rummages in the medicine cabinet.

There is the sound of a cap being unscrewed, then the cold sting of alcohol-soaked cotton being dabbed gently to the small cuts on Steve’s face.

He is acutely aware of how close Bucky is, face mere inches away from Steve’s, muttering grumpily to himself as he administers treatment. Steve is more than a little dumbfounded, and not just from blood loss or blows to the head; the little frown on Bucky’s face is the most he’s looked like his old self in all the time since Steve’s had him back.

“Feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record here, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, tongue poking out as he concentrates on pulling bits of broken glass from Steve’s forehead with tweezers. “You gotta stop being so damn reckless all the time.”

Steve tries to think of something, anything, to say. He comes up empty.

“Don’t fidget,” Bucky scolds, even though Steve’s only shifted slightly.

It’s so achingly familiar, Bucky tending to Steve’s wounds.

This Bucky might have harder, bulkier muscles, and his long hair is tied back, and his cheeks are a little hollower; his left hand no longer flesh and blood, but this is still irrefutably Bucky. It reminds Steve of hundreds of times back when he was small and weak, Bucky fussing over him and cleaning him up, playing like he was annoyed so he could mask the fear underneath.

It went unsaid between the two of them, but it was there just the same: _Don’t scare me like that, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you_.

“Anywhere else, or did your ugly mug take most of the damage?”

“Hmm?” Steve misses most of Bucky’s question, other than the snarky tone he’s said it in. He was too busy spacing out, remembering all those busted lips, those black eyes.

Bucky sighs, moves back and away so he can fold his arms over his chest and glower at Steve properly.

“Was your face the only casualty, or did I imagine that limp earlier?” He asks flatly, making Steve squirm.

He feels like he’s fifteen again, and it makes him want to beam at Bucky.

“On second thought, you smell like you been rendezvousing with a sewer. Take a shower, an’ then I’ll look you over.”

Bucky leaves Steve in the bathroom to go find Sam--presumably to bitch about Steve--still grumbling to himself as he goes.

 

 

Steve wonders how creepy he looks, alone in the shower and grinning like he just won the lottery.

 

 

(Later, when he's got a still-frowning Bucky applying an ice-pack to his knee, Steve'll wonder if there's something wrong with him that this makes him so happy.)

. . .

 

When Bucky calmly announces his intentions to turn himself in to SHIELD, Steve politely excuses himself to have a quiet panic attack in the bathroom.

He knows that there is only so far he can walking Bucky through that facility—hold his hand, so to speak—and it makes Steve’s insides itch and twist.

“You know you don’t have to do this, Buck.” Steve tells him, the night before Bucky’s supposed to leave the brownstone for SHIELD.

The television is on and playing a program featuring a cynical, older guy who travels around tasting food and making snarky comments. Steve wonders absently if the show’s host is a friend of Tony’s.

Bucky’s answering smile is tight, and doesn’t reach his eyes; he settles deeper into the couch cushions and shrugs.

“You gonna stand up to the bullies for me, Steve?” He asks with a snort.

The words are sharp, a meanness running through Bucky’s voice that stings Steve like a slap.

Steve does not say, _I’d stand up to God himself if he hurt you._

“What’m I supposed to do here, Bucky? _Jesus_.” Steve doesn’t mean for his voice to come out sounding so pinched, so hurt.

“Just—just stop trying to act like I’m some innocent victim. You got no fuckin’ _clue_.” Bucky spits out the words with more venom than Steve is prepared for.

Glancing at Bucky, Steve sees that his expression is hard. He remembers that there are things about this Bucky that Steve does not know. Might never know. There are hurts that Steve can’t take away.

It makes Steve angry, in a real, raw way, that Bucky feels guilty for what HYDRA made him do. What HYDRA did to him.

Steve slams his fist down without thinking on the coffee table hard enough to crack the glass top, startling them both.

“That wasn’t your fault!” His voice is louder than he means it to be, on the edge of shouting, but Steve can’t seem to hold back anymore. “It makes me… _God_ , it makes me _sick_ , Bucky, just thinking about it. I should’ve been there, I should’ve—”

But Steve doesn’t have to speak the rest of that terrible, ugly truth out loud, because Bucky is on his feet and hauling Steve up by his arm, too, into a rough embrace.

“Jesus Christ. Shut up, you stupid punk. Shoulda known you’d think up some stupid shit like that, _fuck_.” Bucky whispers hoarsely into Steve’s shoulder.

Steve thinks that he could hug Bucky a hundred times a day for the rest of their lives, and it still would never be enough.

He thinks about telling Bucky that he’s just so _afraid;_  afraid that SHIELD will take Bucky away from him for good, that Bucky will disappear again, that Steve will be left alone all over again.

The words get stuck somewhere in his chest, though, and he says nothing.

 

 

They stand there like that, frozen in each other’s arms while the man on the television makes clever quips about French fashion, while Sam sits in his bedroom watching Netflix with the door closed, while taxis make pick-ups and drop-offs; while the world keeps on turning outside their window.

. . .

Everyone keeps telling Steve that it will be fine.

SHIELD has been torn down and rebuilt, every last person on the payroll having been vetted by the ghost of Nick Fury himself (whose whereabouts are still unknown.) They aren’t planning on holding Bucky prisoner, or keeping him in conditions that are in any way inhumane.

Still, Steve can’t help the way he clings when Bucky is being ushered into a windowless room by Deputy Director Hill and Director Coulson (speaking of ghosts) for a formal debriefing and interview.

“Gotta let go’a my arm, Stevie, 'else I can’t get this over with.” Bucky says, gentle and teasing.

He’s wearing one of Steve’s sweatshirts, looking calm, determined; a little stubborn, but better than he has in weeks.

“I know, I just—” Steve falters, uncomfortable speaking his feelings even without the agents standing stiffly a few feet away.

“Sooner they figure out I’m not gonna hurt you, sooner they’ll let me come home.” Bucky gives Steve a little smirking grin, an echo of the cocky smile he used to throw around like a Tony Stark throws around money.

Steve pulls Bucky in for a hug, tight and shorter than he’d like.

He promises to visit every day that he can, and walks out of the new SHIELD headquarters feeling lighter than he’d felt going in.

Bucky’d said _home_. He considers Steve’s place _home_.

. . .

_“I met your boy Barnes today; you know, tall, dark, and robotic?”_

Tony’s voice is almost more irritating over the phone than in person, Steve thinks, flopping back onto the pillows he’s stacked on the couch.

“Is there a point to this phone call, Tony?”

_“Sass? And from St. Steven, no less? I am shocked, Capsicle. I think this guy is a bad influence on you.”_

Steve snorts, grinning, unable to help it at the mention of Bucky.

“Tell me somethin’ I _don’t_ know, though he’d swear to you it’s the other way around.”

There’s a pause, and the staticky sound Steve’s come to associate with Tony making calls from inside the suit.

 _“Sorry, sorry. This is just new, I’m not used to you with a, ah, personality. Huh. Anyway,”_ Stark’s inability to stay on one topic for long strikes again, _“Yeah. Right. So, I met the guy, and I’m wondering, is there any chance in hell that he’d let me take a look at that arm?”_

Steve swallows, unsure about answering for Bucky. God knows he’s had enough choices taken away from him to last a lifetime.

“Ah, jeez, Tony. I don’t—I worry that it’s got some kind of hidden trigger in it, but I think…”

_“—That right now probably isn’t the best time? I agree with you, shockingly. I don’t want to freak him out when he’s so early into recovery.”_

Steve doesn’t know how to respond to Tony Stark being a considerate human being. It’s unnerving. And, oddly touching.

“I— _thanks_ , Tony. I, uh, really appreciate that. But if you weren’t actually calling about Bucky’s arm, then…?”

_“Okay, you got me. I’m actually calling to remind you—no pressure—that there’s still a floor at the Tower with your name on it. Well, not so much your name as your biometrics and DNA profile, making it accessible only to you and those you allow—”_

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. He’d tried to forget about Stark’s ridiculous gesture after the whole thing with the Chitauri.

Sighing, he tries to think of a way to refuse, again. “Look, Tony, I really don’t think that I’m up for—”

_“—Don’t answer right away, just…just think about it. When Barnes is done being swept for bugs by the eager beavers at SHIELD, then you can give me an answer, sound good?”_

Steve hadn’t even thought about that, about whether Bucky would prefer to live somewhere bigger, somewhere nicer. What if SHIELD doesn’t give Bucky the all-clear? They’ll want to keep him somewhere he can be safely monitored.

Suddenly, Steve realizes exactly what Tony’s offering. It makes his chest squeeze unexpectedly.

“I—thanks, Tony. I will.”

_“My pleasure, Cap. I’m just here to serve my country’s veterans. Speaking of which, tell that delicious chocolate roommate of yours that he’s welcome at the Tower, too.”_

“Good- _bye_ , Tony,” Steve says firmly, rolling his eyes and ending the call. He immediately texts Sam to let him know that Tony Stark just referred to him as 'that delicious chocolate roommate of yours.' 

 

When he goes to bed that night, he can’t help wondering if Bucky’s having trouble sleeping, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all. 
> 
> God, don'tcha just want 'em to kiss already?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, the other Avengers appear!
> 
> Steve keeps on pining, Bucky keeps on fixing himself, and everything just got a whole lot plottier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been reading! I am so sorry for the delay in this update. Please accept my apologies, as well as a metaphysical cake. 
> 
> <3

“What’cha got in the bag, Rogers?”

Tony always seems to pop up out of nowhere when it comes to Steve; all caffeinated, manically glinting eyes, ready to be irritating. Steve literally _just_ passed through security on the ground floor of SHIELD headquarters, on his way to visit Bucky, and now he’s got to contend with the likes of Tony Stark.

But, being who he is, Steve can’t bring himself to completely ignore Tony.

He tries to use his best no-nonsense voice when he answers.

“Cookies.”

Tony, for such a short person, is aggravatingly good at keeping up with Steve’s long strides. His eyes take on that glimmer they usually do when he’s about to make one of his famously witty jokes about Steve.

“Ooh, are those for Bucky Bear?”

Steve stops mid-step to turn and glare at Tony, whose eyes dart away as he tries to look innocent and fails completely.

“Were you waiting long to use that one, Tony?” Steve drawls, raising his eyebrows and looking bored.

“No. Maybe. Why, was it not as irksome as I’d hoped? Am I losing my touch?”

Steve pretends to be thinking about it, widening his eyes and tapping his chin. “Well, it wasn’t as good as ‘Saving Private Lenin,’—yeah, I heard about that one—but it was okay. No real wit, though. Bucky Bears were a real thing.”

Tony, for once, is blessedly too stunned to speak right away.

Steve takes this golden opportunity to shove one of the Polish cookies into Tony’s open mouth, then starts back down the hall.

“Good talk, Tony.” He calls over his shoulder.

 

“And here I was thinkin’ you’d forget about your poor ol’ pal,” Bucky says by way of greeting, grabbing the white wax paper bag of cookies out of Steve’s hand before he even sits down.

The ‘apartment’ SHIELD has set up for Bucky is nice—much nicer than that joke of a room they’d set up for Steve—and for that, Steve breathes a sigh of relief. The two of them sit down at a little table in the kitchen nook, and Steve feels like he can relax again.

He can see Bucky, see that he’s fine, not hurt, not being treated poorly. It’s okay. Nothing is wrong.

“You’re one cookie short,” Steve jerks his thumb in the direction of the door that leads out into the hall. “I ran into Stark, had to do something to get him to shut up.”

Bucky smiles and shoves a whole cookie into his mouth while Steve tries to keep the smile on his own face from growing dangerously sappy.

“Oh, right!” Steve smacks himself on the forehead, remembering the other surprise he brought for Bucky. “Hey, I got you something else, too. You’ll probably be a whiz at it, better than me in no time.”

He pulls the sleek, aesthetically pleasing StarkPhone out of his jacket pocket and slides it across the little table to Bucky, who wipes the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand before snatching the phone up greedily.

“It’s a—I don’t know how much you know about technology nowadays, so just tell me to put a sock in it if I’m telling you stuff you already heard—it’s a phone. Um, they call them smartphones. This one was designed by Tony Stark.”

Bucky snorts, already having worked out how to get to the home screen on the device, tapping gingerly with his right index finger.

“Oh, I met him. Talks a mile a minute, just like his old man.” He rolls his eyes, then abruptly gets up and moves his chair around to sit on Steve’s side of the table. “Sorry—I was—okay, keep telling me about this gizmo. Some of the agents started to explain this stuff, but it was hard to keep track. S’easier when you explain things.”

It’s possibly the longest thing Bucky’s said to Steve in this century, and Steve tries not to let the stupid grin on his face get any stupider. He sets about showing Bucky everything he can about how to use the little rectangle that neither one of them could have in their wildest dreams imagined.

Their shoulders bump together and Bucky doesn’t move away like Steve thinks he will; instead, he leans gently against Steve, warm and solid and real.

. .

When Steve goes back to the brownstone, Sam is in the living room, along with Clint and Natasha.

“You’re not making the face—Tasha, he’s not making the face.” Clint points at Steve, then sticks his hand out to Natasha, palm up. “You owe me twenty.”

Natasha rolls her eyes but pulls a folded twenty dollar bill seemingly out of thin air and hands it to Clint.

“The absence of ‘the face’ means we can assume your visit went fairly well?” Sam asks, shooting Steve a sidelong look and taking a swig of his beer.

Steve is about to tell them all, in very good humor, to _shut it_ , when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

There’s one new message, from Bucky, and Steve can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed at how eagerly he opens it.

_> bet ya didn’t think i’d catch on so quick, huh pal?_

Steve feels his face nearly splitting in two with the force of his grin. He goes to type out a response, but clearly Bucky’s got him beat for speed.

_> thanks for the visit earlier. it is so incredibly DULL here now, though :(_

Steve wonders how the hell Bucky got the hang of texting within two days, while he himself still struggles switching back and forth between the numbers and symbols and actual letters sometimes. He eventually replies with

_> so naturally you texted me to entertain you :)_

Steve hopes it’s not too comfortable of him, talking like this over this new means of communication. It’s just that hearing Bucky (or reading about it, Steve guesses) complain about being bored is as familiar to Steve as his own right hand.

How many rainy or snowy days did Bucky pester him while he tried to draw until he eventually relented in favor of entertaining his best friend?

When his phone is tucked back into his pocket, Steve realizes that he’s been standing in the living room, smiling like a creep at his phone for the last five minutes while Clint, Sam, and Natasha all stare at him.

“Uh, what did you ask me before?” Steve aims for casual and misses the mark by an entire continent.

All three of them share a look before cracking up loudly enough that Steve worries about the neighbors.

“You already answered, dude, don’t worry.” Sam says gleefully, between chuckles. Natasha quirks one perfect brow and smirks intensely at Steve. He feels himself go red all the way to his ears, but he doesn’t care.

“I think I’m just gonna,” Steve jerks his thumb in the direction of the bedrooms, and his friends all try to nod and look like they aren’t snorting with laughter.

“Aw, c’mon Cap! It’s _cute!_ ” Clint calls after him down the little hallway.

“Shut it,” Steve calls back cheerfully, only half-listening; he’s got another message from Bucky.

_> naturally. tell me a story? _

_> one about something dumb you did in the future._

Steve sighs heavily, as if Bucky were actually here and could hear him doing it, and starts to type out the tragic saga of his first experience with internet pop-ups.

 

They end up texting back and forth until very late; Steve knows he should go to bed, but he’s caught in the moment and unwilling to break the spell.

The last message he gets from Bucky says

_> how bout bringing me a cheeseburger tomorrow?_

Steve falls asleep smiling.

. .

After about two weeks of visiting Bucky at SHIELD, Steve decides to bother Coulson into letting him stay with Bucky.

“Have you been monitoring him while he sleeps?” Steve argues, trying to sound reasonable and not emotionally invested at all. “He gets nightmares, right? He was doing really well with that when we—when he was living with me.”

Even though he’s the head of SHIELD now, and one of the most no-nonsense people Steve’s ever met, Phil Coulson still has an undeniable soft spot for his childhood hero Captain America. He agrees to let Steve stay in the apartment in facility with Bucky.

Steve tries not to look too pleased when he thanks Director Coulson, and he tries not to sprint all the way up the five flights of stairs to Bucky’s floor.

. .

One by one, Bucky is introduced to the Avengers, and with each success, Steve breathes a little sigh of relief.

As Bucky comes out of his shell, recovering more of his memories and his personality with the therapist he finally agreed to see, Steve feels like he too can come out of hibernation.

Before he had Bucky back, it was like he was only living for the duty of being Captain America. He was struggling with Steve Rogers.

Granted, having friends helped, but there was still something that kept him tentative, kept that part of him who smiled easily and laughed openly locked away in an ivy-covered tower. Sam was—is still—helping Steve with those feelings, but now that Bucky exists again (as more than just a missing piece or haloed dream) they don’t seem so far away. They don’t seem so damn hard.

Steve finds himself teasing Stark back instead of bristling at his nonstop stream of jabs. He actually lets Darcy Lewis take selfies with him and post them to her Twitter and Instagram (they go viral in a matter of minutes). It’s like he’s finally stretching his legs in this new century, and it feels…it feels surprisingly okay, to let himself be happy. To act his age.

(His age which is not 98 years old, despite the many, many ‘clever’ cracks made by every Avenger other than Bruce and Thor.)

(Steve gets to watch as Bucky becomes less skittish, less terrified and self-contained with each passing day; he tries to keep his swelling heart in check.)

(One morning, he finds Bucky in the training facility playing some elaborate kind of target practice/obstacle course with Clint while Natasha acts as referee. When Bucky wins by three points, Clint demands a rematch. Seeing Steve in the observation booth with Natasha, Bucky gives a smug little grin and actually _salutes_.)

(Sometimes, Steve will find Bucky meditating or doing yoga with Bruce. Steve doesn’t interrupt—he’s tried yoga and failed comically—he just leaves them to it. Tries not to wonder if the old Bucky would have laughed, or been just as game to give it a try.)

(There’s a fiasco in the SHIELD kitchen involving Clint, Bucky, several SHIELD interns, a whole sack of flour, and about five hundred Russian tea cookies which are offered to Hill and Coulson by way of an apology.)

(Natasha drops by every so often, when she isn’t off doing unknown things in faraway places, hopefully in the name of good. She brings out a softer side in Bucky, and Steve fondly leaves them to their vodka and trashy television shows. Natasha likes to fix Steve with amused smirks whenever Bucky isn’t looking, and Steve likes to pretend he’s as oblivious as people think.)

(Sam comes to visit a lot, mostly so he can watch movies from the list with Bucky and Steve, and shoot Steve unamused, judgmental looks when Bucky is otherwise occupied. Between Sam and Natasha, Steve feels very, very judged.)

(Tony Stark is a constant nuisance, what with all his whip-quick remarks and incessant whining for a look at the Arm, but Bucky takes to the banter with a relaxed ease that surprises everyone but Steve.

Bucky’d never cared much for the original Stark—always thought Howard was too slick for his own good—but he’d always liked sticking it to him by not rising to the obvious bait. It works just as well on Tony as it did on his father.

Steve has to admit, it’s pretty damn satisfying to watch Tony turn vaguely purple as his cleverly-planned snark is diffused by Bucky’s complete indifference.

Every now and again, Bucky will come back with a remark of his own, corners of his mouth curling slyly upwards. Tony usually turns on his heel and stomps out of the room.

“I keep telling you, Steve,” Bucky says when Tony’s gone, grinning wide and pleased. “The only reason Stark gives you so much grief is on account of how much you let on that it irks you.”)

(Thor pulls Steve aside one day, a little while after he’s first met Bucky.

“Your shield-brother, the one called Barnes, he came to you a broken thing.” Thor says, to which Steve replies with silence.

Thor claps one monstrous hand on Steve’s shoulder, stares intensely into his eyes. “Ah, but his soul and mind have made great leaps in the name of restoration! I wonder why, then, do you still dwell in the shadow of your towering sadness?”

Steve tries not to look like he wants to run away, even though he really fucking does. “Um,” he says, eyes skittering away from Thor’s piercing blue gaze.

“You too have wounds that fester unseen, Steven Rogers. It would do you well to let someone tend to them.” Thor says, affecting an air of mysterious wisdom.

Steve gets the feeling that Thor enjoys using his status as a superiorly-intelligent alien life form specifically for affecting airs of mysterious wisdom in moments like these.

Even so, Steve thanks him and doesn’t wince at the crushing hug Thor gives him before wandering cheerfully off to find his Jane. Steve is left wondering how the hell he’s supposed to fix wounds he can’t even admit he has.)

(Steve still doesn’t like having to go away on missions, though they’re rarely outside of the country now. He tries not to worry about what Bucky’s getting up to while he’s gone, tries not to hover while he’s home or text too much when he’s not.

Bucky catches on fast, though, and pretty soon whenever Steve’s off on a mission, he sends pictures of himself doing mundane things and staring flatly into the camera. _ >See, ma? I’m fine. Now quit worryin’, you’ll get wrinkles._ Bucky texts.

Steve ignores the way his teammates (terribly) feign innocent and ask him why he’s all smiles.)

(After about two months, Bucky is suddenly given the all-clear from SHIELD, and Steve finds himself actually taking Tony up on his ridiculous offer.)

. .

 

Bucky, now more Bucky than the Soldier at any given time, is equal parts awed and annoyed by Stark’s massive clean-energy tower.

“So they just let any schmuck with money add to the city skyline, huh.” He snorts when they first arrive, unimpressed.

Steve elbows him in the ribs and tells him to be polite, which in turn earns him a kick to the shins.

_“Greetings, Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. I shall inform Sir of your arrivals. The elevator will take you to your floor.”_

Bucky is mildly startled by the disembodied voice of JARVIS, but relaxes again when JARVIS, unprompted, gives a concise explanation of his existence and functions. Bucky turns to Steve, eyes large and shining.

“Robots?” He breathes.

Steve raises his eyebrows and shrugs, and then they both grin like idiots.

. .

“A whole _floor_ , Rogers? I dunno whether to be proud of you for making rich friends, or worried because Stark is nuts.”

Their floor is, Steve has to admit, pretty breathtaking. There’s a gorgeous view, and everything seems geared towards comfort rather than the sleek, modern aesthetic of what Steve’s seen of the rest of the Tower. The decor is simple, clean lines and light colors, and Steve is wholly unsurprised to find a note on the kitchen table from Pepper Potts telling them to settle in and ignore Tony.

Bucky is zooming around the place with an enthusiasm usually reserved for food or Natasha, opening closets and peeking into rooms.

Steve knows what he’s got to be thinking, same as he is—never in their wildest dreams could they have fathomed anything as nice as this.

“Jesus, I think the bathroom is bigger than our old place.” Bucky exclaims, poking his head out from said bathroom.

“Honestly, the _refrigerator_ is bigger than our old place, Buck,” Steve replies, looking in the fridge and wondering if he really wanted to know how Stark knew to stock his favorite protein shakes.

Bucky gets tired of exploring after awhile, eventually curling up on the sofa with a book he finds on the packed bookshelf. Steve makes two mugs of tea and joins him, finding the latest book he’s borrowed from Regina Wilson.

They sit in comfortable silence, sipping tea, Bucky’s feet somehow ending up over Steve’s lap.

“This is all pretty crazy, ain’t it Stevie?” Bucky says suddenly, half-into his mug, and Steve knows exactly what he means.

“Yeah,” he agrees, nudging Bucky’s socked foot with his still-warm mug. “But you know, some things’ll never change. You still got the dirtiest feet in New York City.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and shoves one of his feet into Steve’s face, sock smelling of ripe sweat.

Steve doesn’t think he’s ever been happier.

. .

“You could have just told me you felt guilty about backing out of the lease,” Sam grins when he shows up on the common floor two days later, duffel bag over one shoulder. “Didn’t have to get Stark to build me a floor here, too.”

Steve _did_ feel guilty about backing out of the lease, but the fact that Tony already had plans to, er, collect Sam too helped ease the guilt.

“Don’t you _dare_ give Rogers the credit for that.” Tony appears out of nowhere, comically large mug of coffee in hand and mock-affront on his face. “I’ll have you know I’ve been scoping you since you showed up at the Triskelion fiasco wearing those incredibly sexy wings—”

“—Which you are absolutely not touching, Tony,” Sam warns, half-grinning anyway.

Tony sort of throws himself haphazardly into one of the chairs, looking (as usual), like he hasn’t slept.

Bucky is plowing through his second Belgian waffle, loaded up with four different kinds of syrupy fruit, and Steve is valiantly pretending not to watch him, stupidly fond. Sam makes himself a cup of coffee and toasts a bagel before joining them at the table.

“Finally got a full set, huh, Tony?” Steve asks, smirking behind his glass of orange juice.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the wonder of tart, fresh orange juice being readily available, any time he wants it.

Tony exhales loudly, glaring at Steve.

“ _Wrong_ , as per usual, my anachronistic chum. Rhodey keeps spurning my advances, so to speak. He’s moved in with that terrifying Danvers woman instead of me, his BFF.”

Sam almost spits out his coffee. “Danvers— _Major_ Danvers? As in ‘your best friend Colonel James Rhodes and Major Carol Danvers are a thing?’ Holy _mother_ —y’all hear that? _That_ is the sound of the flagship of my OTP fleet setting sail.”

Most of what Sam’s just said goes way over Steve’s head, but Tony snorts.

“Cap, I think your feathery friend is about to hyperventilate. Yes, Wilson, I’m talking about Major Danvers. Personally, I've never understood the appeal…”

“That’s because she broke your wrist at that gala when you tried to cop a feel,” Natasha says airily, materializing in the kitchen and helping herself to a waffle.

Steve notices that her hair is in a braid, and she’s favoring her right leg.

“Maybe. Possibly.” Tony waves a hand, scowling. “Anyway, that’s not the point, the _point_ is that she’s terrifying and now my best friend is shacking up with her instead of here in my cool tower.”

“In case you ever wondered what it looks like when a grown man with billions of dollars throws a tantrum,” Steve nudges Bucky, who snorts so hard he nearly chokes on his bite of waffles.

“I’m never going to get used to Cap with a sense of humor,” Tony mutters, reaching for a syrupy raspberry from Natasha’s plate only to have his hand slapped away.

“This has been the most exciting morning of my life,” Sam says reverently, still a little shiny-eyed about the Danvers-Rhodey thing.

(Steve has met Colonel Rhodes on several occasions, and Major Danvers a handful of times. He likes them both, and is quietly pleased to hear that their relationship is working out.)

“More exciting than when Rogers and I surprised you for breakfast that one time?” Natasha asks innocently, wide-eyed and blinking across the table at Sam, who scoffs.

“Put that face away,” He frowns at her. “It’s unnerving as hell. You look like one of those big-eyed dolls white people always go nuts over.”

It’s…nice, all of them in one place, eating together and giving each other shit.

Steve would rather die than admit it, but he thinks that maybe coming to live at the Tower was a good idea after all.

“Gee, Steve, is this what it feels like to have a family?” Bucky pipes up like the little shit he is, all fake-bright and hopeful-orphan, and then all hell breaks loose.

Natasha barks out a single laugh, like it’s been startled out of her. Sam spits his coffee back into the cup, Tony’s goes spraying across the table with the sheer force of his laughter, and Bucky has to pat Steve on the back to stop him choking on a bite of toast.

Clint wanders in a few moments later, scratching his head and groggily inquiring as to why the table’s dripping coffee.

. . .

Of course, living in a luxury high-rise with Earth’s mightiest heroes has to have some downsides.

Having all of his teammates in such close proximity can kind of be a nightmare, in all honesty.

Tony is rude, and his mouth moves about fifty times faster than his incredible brain, which means he could level whole countries before his mind caught up and realized the damage.

Natasha and Clint like to pop out of air ducts or slink around in the shadows of other people’s space.

Bruce is timid, keeps to himself more often than not. Steve is grateful for Bruce.

Sam gets routinely fed up with all of them, leaving to go “be among the regular, non-crazy people” at least once a week.

Bucky gets frustrated with himself, and then goes and hides somewhere that Steve can’t find and JARVIS won’t help.

_“Sergeant Barnes has asked that I not disclose his current location, other than the fact that he is still in the Tower, and that he is safe. He also said, his words, ‘So butt out, Steve.’ My apologies, Captain Rogers.”_

Steve can only sigh and bite his tongue because he can’t get into an argument with Tony’s A.I.

Aside from interpersonal issues, there’s the issue of Steve’s uncomfortable attraction to Bucky.

(He wishes it was just that he loved Bucky, that it wasn’t so hard to stop _wanting_ him, too.)

Now that Bucky is more relaxed, he walks around in soft t-shirts and black jeans that cling (Steve really hates Natasha) looking just as devastating as he did when they were eighteen. Bucky still keeps his hair long, forgets to shave sometimes so dark stubble covers his jaw, but no matter how he looks, Steve can’t stop _looking_.

Steve has to keep himself in check, keep reminding himself that this Bucky is just as off-limits as the Bucky he’d known before.

This means many showers, and that Steve becomes intimately reacquainted with his hand.

Sometimes, before the war, before—Steve had used to get the feeling that maybe there was something between them. Like maybe, Bucky looked at him for a half-second too long, or licked his lips unconsciously when he stared. Steve had wondered if there was even the slightest chance that Bucky wanted him, thought about what he’d do and how he could find out for sure.

Now, though, Steve doesn’t dare hope.

After everything Bucky’s been through, how could Steve even dream that there was a chance in hell that if Bucky’d felt something for him, he’d even remember it? That he’d want it still? It’s too farfetched, too much of a risk.

Steve knows he’s a hopeless, reckless bastard, but even he has his limits.

. .

 

A month or two later, just after Thanksgiving (and wasn’t _that_ a fiasco), the Avengers are called away to a tiny, sequestered country called Sarkovia, and all the good feelings drain out of Steve quicker than air from a punctured oxygen tank.

It starts off okay; they’re all working well as a team, each playing their role to well-oiled machine perfection. Tony cracks jokes over the comms, Natasha and Clint perform their usual breathtaking ballet of hand-to-hand combat and long-range kills. Bruce waits, anxious but safe in the quinjet, just in case. Thor strikes mjölnir against the heart of Steve’s shield to stupefy every enemy within five miles of the fortress.

Some whack-job called Baron Von Strucker (yeah, they’d all done some serious side-eyeing at the name when Coulson and Hill had briefed them) is trying to harness some infinite power source, and so-on and blah blah…basically the same as usual.

Of course, as usual, the Avengers are missing a piece of critical information: there are two enhanced beings— _mutants_ , Tony says cheerily over the comms—with whom they now have to contend.

They make it into the fortress, but something happens. Something…something isn’t right. The male mutant backs off, and a girl no bigger than Steve’s thumb creeps out from the shadows, eyes huge and haunted.

Steve thinks that she looks like she needs help, and he’s about to signal someone to try and get her out of here, but then he’s falling to his knees and his head is swimming.

He hates the feeling of going under; it’s too much like drowning.

. .

_He’s standing in a dance hall, filled with G.I.s and their girls, balloons and drinks and bright music._

_Steve knows it isn’t real, he does, but it just feels so—_

_“Captain Rogers,” a voice he hasn’t heard without the tremors of age since before he crashed that plane._

_Steve turns to see Peggy Carter, in her dress blues and that red-red lipstick, looking just as resplendent as she had the day they’d met._

_“The war is over, Steve. You can go home.” She says, briefly touching her cool fingers to his cheek._

_Steve closes his eyes and leans into it, enjoying the contact. “Pegs, I can’t, there’s—”_

_But Steve loses his train of thought (and fuck that idiom, he’s hated that expression since the Alps) because across the dance floor is Steve’s whole heart, hair slicked back and shining brighter than the goddamn sun._

_“Scuse me,” Steve says absently to Peggy, who smiles blithely and lets him go._

_Steve pushes through the throngs of people, muttering apologies when he steps on feet or bumps shoulders. He can’t seem to move fast enough._

_“What’s the hurry, pal? You look like a man with somewhere to be.”_

_And oh, oh, that’s Bucky._

_That’s Bucky as true and as himself as he ever was, all cocksure swagger and crooked grin. There are medals pinned to his uniform, and his actual real left hand holds a drink._

_“No—no hurry. Just,” Steve tries to catch his breath “I was looking for you, jerk.”_

_Bucky with the real arm and the eyes unclouded by fear and trauma, grins broadly before tugging at Steve’s sleeve and yanking him out of the ballroom and into an empty hallway._

_Steve goes willingly; what else is he going to do?_

_In the near-dark, Steve barely has a moment to process everything, to get his feet again because all of a sudden, Bucky is crowding him into a janitor’s closet. His body is warm and smells the way it is supposed to, and Steve can feel his own heart about to beat out of his chest._

_“I was waiting for you too, Stevie.” Bucky says, low and husky, pushing against Steve so he’s backed up against the wall._

_This isn’t—this didn’t happen, did it? Steve’s head is fuzzy, and he wants to figure out why, he does, but then—_

_—then, Bucky is kissing him, and it’s too much, it’s too good, and Steve could do this forever—_

_—the closet is gone, and so is Bucky. Steve is alone in a bombed out pub somewhere in Europe. Peggy Carter comes to him with surety and strength in the length of her stride._

_“Why didn’t you save him, Steve? You were supposed to have loved him, for God’s sake.” She says, but she sounds far away, like she’s on land while Steve sinks down, down, down—_

_—and he is sinking, only there’s no one to save him, because Bucky is dead, he’s gone, and it’s all Steve’s fault—_

. .

“Cap, c’mon, we gotta go. Cap— _Steve_ , this ain’t funny, man!”

Steve’s eyelids open like they’re being weighed down by boulders, and Sam is kneeling over him, wearing his flying gear.

Relief breaks over Sam’s face when Steve tries to sit up. “Oh, thank fuck. Okay, man, you gotta stand up for me. Everyone else is waiting on the quinjet, they couldn’t find you.”

Steve mumbles something unintelligible, but gets on his feet so Sam can loop two sturdy arms around his middle.

Somewhere between taking off and landing next to the jet, Steve blacks out again.

. .

“That was fucking terrible,” complains Tony, who hasn’t been able to stop talking since they made it out of Sarkovia. Steve feels like he’s been hit by a truck—no, _ten_ trucks—and for once, he agrees with Tony a hundred percent.

“I don’t get it, though, how did that mutant girl manage to whammy all of you guys?” Sam asks, looking a little singed but a damn sight better than the rest of them.

“Mind-control,” Natasha says darkly, looking more compromised than Steve’s ever seen her. Whatever nightmare she’d been forced to live, Steve is willing to bet it was ten times worse than his own. “She’s got some sort of telepathy, as far as we can figure. Part of her ability is to create complex hallucinations based on a person’s deepest fears as well as their memories.”

“That’s…so… _evil_ , wow. Fuck, I hate mind-control,” Clint spits.

“But you weren’t affected by it either,” Sam points out.

“True,” Clint agrees, scooting over in his seat so Natasha can rest her head on his shoulder. “But I’ve been working with Professor Xavier on my mental shields. Guy’s got an upsettingly Magneto-shaped blind spot, but he’s a fucking genius.”

(Steve recalls the few times he’s met Charles Xavier and actually cracks a smile; when he’d first been introduced, Professor Xavier’s blue eyes had gleamed mischievously and when nobody was within earshot, he’d gleefully told Steve that he’d had a Captain America poster as a boy. _“Oh, I fancied you something awful! Pity I’m old and useless now that I find out you’re still sex on two legs!”_ he’d said, which made Steve turn five shades of red. Then, far too saucily for an esteemed man of his age and notoriety, he’d said _“You should have seen me in my prime. We’d probably have much more interesting things to—ahem—talk about.”_ Steve had done some googling and discovered that the professor had actually been quite a looker.)

“What’s got you looking like a tomato over there, Rogers? You got a thing for old telepaths?”

Tony looks entirely too excited at the prospect of mocking Steve.

“Oh, obviously. I was just remembering in vivid detail all the wild sex I had the last time I visited Xavier’s school.” Steve widens his eyes at Tony, who looks stunned, thens scowls.

It feels good to hear his teammates—his friends—laugh after all that’s happened today.

Steve thinks that as long as he can keep moving forward, he won’t have to think about that nightmare.

 

Anything to block out the memory of the vivid picture of a Bucky who doesn’t exist’s lips on his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now I must go to work. Sigh. Enjoy!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is taking me so dreadfully long, and I finally realized why: I am in school. I am a bag of stress and bones. 
> 
> I love and appreciate everyone who has even glanced at this fic (or any of my fics) I'll just be over here in the corner, weeping, trying to peel myself like a satsuma*

 

Turns out, he doesn’t need to try and distract himself;

Tony starts going on about the power source potential found in the scepter they retrieved from Von Strucker, the glint in his eye more terror than anything else.

Bruce looks anxious, like he’s waiting for Tony to try and bully him into helping do— _something_ —with the scepter in the labs.

Thor has his arms folded over his chest, a deep furrow between his eyebrows that Steve doesn’t think he’s seen before.

Sam is shaking his head, clearly not going to be the one to step up and butt heads with Tony, but not liking what he’s rambling about, either.

Natasha is propping Clint up where he stands, barely able to keep his eyes open; Steve suspects he may have in fact turned off his hearing aids as well.

Steve is exhausted, physically and mentally drained. He just wants to scrub off the dirt and grime and flop onto the couch.

No one notices as the elevator doors glide open; they’re too busy trying to not-argue with Tony, who keeps trying to insist that they need to protect the world better.

Bucky strolls in, dressed in sweats with his hair tied back in a loose bun, and Steve’s entire body just sort of relaxes. It takes a lot of willpower not to reach out for Bucky, to offer instead a tired smile. Bucky glances toward the others, then raises his eyebrows at Steve, questioning. Steve gives a small shrug, shaking his head and frowning.

Thor is crowding into Tony’s space now, looming over him like a redwood tree over a houseplant. Steve doesn’t want to have to break anything up, but—

“Tony,” Pepper Potts has seemingly appeared out of thin air, sensing that her other half is about to do something colossally unwise.

Natasha looks mildly amused, quirking one eyebrow and catching Steve’s eye. Bruce looks profoundly relieved. Thor still looks like he’s about to start ripping limbs from torsos and painting himself with the blood. Tony looks like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“But, _Pep_ —” Tony whines.

Pepper folds her arms over her chest, stares coolly down at Tony with a hard set to her jaw.

“ _Tony_.” She says, this time with an unmistakable edge of warning.

Tony looks away, shoving his hands into his pockets. He nods, somewhat reluctantly.

“Come on, honey. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Pepper tugs on Tony’s sleeve, and he follows willingly. Steve lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’s been holding. “By the way,” Pepper calls over her shoulder, pleasant and smooth as always, “Phil Coulson says debriefing is in the morning. Lovely to see you all,”

They disappear into the elevator, Tony Stark and his unbelievable catch of a partner Pepper Potts.

Steve, Thor, Sam, Bruce, Natasha, and Bucky all stare dumbly at each other. (Clint is definitely passed out on his feet, so he isn’t staring at anything but the insides of his eyelids.) Sam catches Steve’s eye and shakes his head, grinning weakly. Bucky is making a face of bland annoyance, which Natasha notices with another of her little smirks.

When Thor suggests an impromptu movie night, Steve is both relieved and a little disappointed; he would rather be curled around Bucky in the bed they don't even bother pretending not to share, inhaling his scent to remind himself that Bucky is here. That he’s not going away again.

.

When they’re finally shuffling off to bed, Bucky taps Steve on the shoulder so he’ll turn around.

“C’mere—” Bucky says under his breath, reaching for Steve the way Steve could not let himself reach for Bucky.

Steve finds himself being embraced in the hallway outside their bedroom, and feeling like he could cry.

He doesn’t cry, just hangs on like he would have if he’d been able to catch Bucky’s hand on that train—

“I’m no mindreader, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess what _you_ hallucinated.” Bucky mutters close to Steve’s ear, voice low and rough.

The lump in Steve’s throat grows spikes, but he swallows anyhow. Bucky is half-right in his guess, and it’s enough to make Steve’s eyes sting.

“Guess we never really talked about it, huh?” Bucky says, though it’s a little muffled from where his mouth is pressed against Steve’s shoulder.

Steve doesn’t know what to say; he knows if he starts talking, he’ll cry.

(Bucky has seen him cry, but Bucky has never seen Steve’s grief over him. It might be too revealing. Too raw.)

“Buck, I—”

“—I want you to tell me,” Bucky says quietly, pulling back so he can look at Steve. “I wanna know that he—that _I_ meant something.”

And lord, if that doesn’t make Steve’s heart ache. It makes him want to say all sorts of things he’d regret saying, makes him want to slit a hole in his belly and let all the secrets he’s never spoken come slithering out to pool at Bucky’s feet.

“Okay.” Steve agrees.

 

They climb into bed, sitting across from each other with blankets around their shoulders, and Steve tells Bucky how when he’d fallen from that train, he’d cried more for Bucky than he had over his own mother’s death.

(He feels a little lighter, having admitted that; one more sin absolved from the impressively long ledger of the guilt of Steve Rogers.)

Staring at his hands, twisting and fiddling with the fabric of the blanket, Steve tells Bucky how dark a place he’d gone. When he gets to the part about the HYDRA plane, about the intentional nosedive, Steve has to stop for a few seconds, wipe roughly at his eyes with the back of one hand.

“You’re always tryin’ to get yourself killed,” Bucky says softly, and when Steve looks up, he sees that Bucky’s eyes are wet, his nose is faintly pink. Steve chuckles wetly, unsure how to handle any of this.

“No, I— _God_ , no. I’m just…” He wipes at his eyes again, sniffling.

“You’re just a stupid fucking asshole, that’s what you are.” Bucky says brokenly, pulling Steve to his chest the same way he did that night in their shitty kitchen. The night Bucky got his 1A papers. “Don’t go looking for trouble anymore, Steve. You know I’ll find out,” Bucky warns, holding onto Steve like he understands.

 

Steve lets himself cry into Bucky's shoulder, silent and real.

…

 

 

The winter holidays are worth mentioning.

In the previous years post-ice, Steve’s gone to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, hunching his shoulders and sitting in the back pew alone.

He likes the quiet calm, the glow of candles and the echo of hymns filling the whole space. Snow and salt-slush on his shoes; faded, precious photographs of his mother, of Peggy Carter, of Bucky tucked into his jacket.

This year, though, Steve actually finds himself looking forward to winter, to the holidays. It’s the first year he’s felt like celebrating anything.

 

“Don’t go buying me any fancy presents, Rogers,” Bucky warns idly, eyes never leaving the star-shaped cookie he’s icing with the utmost care.

They’ve been baking (well, Bucky’s been baking) cookies all afternoon, all kinds of recipes ranging from the simplest sugar cookies to some very pretty macarons that had Bucky swearing a blue streak before he mastered them.

Steve has been puttering around, content to watch and maybe sneak some cookie dough, handing Bucky cooking utensils and extra ingredients when they’re needed.

He _loves_ watching Bucky do things, normal things like this. Things he never would have been able to do back in their day due to lack of time and money, on account of how little they had.

Now, Steve can afford to buy fancy flours and exotic fruits and whatever the hell _aged eggs_  are. He can dip his little finger into the salted caramel filling for the Earl Grey macarons while Bucky’s back is turned, only to have his hand smacked by a wooden spoon.

(Steve even got a real Christmas tree—not too big even though they’ve got the space for it—and he, Darcy Lewis, Sam, and Clint spent an afternoon putting ornaments on it while Natasha and Bucky sat curled up on the sofa sipping buttered rum-spiked tea and gossiping in Russian. It was a good day.)

“So, what you’re saying is, I can’t give you any gifts,” Steve smiles down at the sink full of dishes he’s about to start on. “Seeing as how you think anything costs more than five bucks, it’s too rich for your blood.”

This earns him another smart whack to the back of the head with the wooden spoon.

“You know damn well what I mean, Steve.” Bucky points at him with said spoon, glaring. “Don’t make me sorry I agreed to let you go all Christmas crazy…”

Steve puts his hands up in surrender before turning back to the sticky, powdery, sugary dishes with a secretive little smile on his face.

Now, he’s _really_ gonna have to go overboard with presents.

.

Christmas Eve, when Steve is getting dressed to go to the midnight mass, Bucky asks if it’d be alright if he went, too.

They walk close together down the slush-covered sidewalks of New York, coats buttoned and hats pulled down on their heads, in comfortable silence while fat snowflakes begin to fall.

They sit together in the last pew, and Steve’s heart clenches when Bucky actually sings along with the hymns, taking the words easily from memory without opening the hymnal at all.

.

Christmas morning is maybe the best Steve’s ever had.

He makes pancakes and bacon for breakfast to the warm melodies of old Christmas songs while Bucky sleeps in; instead of saying good morning, Bucky saunters into the kitchen crooning smoothly along to _White Christmas_.

(Steve can’t believe he’s gone this long without the familiar, melted-butter baritone of Bucky’s singing voice.)

After breakfast, they curl up in front of the television with their coffee to watch a couple more of the seemingly endless list of holiday movies they missed.

The Tower is empty but for the two of them—Sam is with his family; Tony and Pepper have jetted away to somewhere sunny and warm, and Bruce has all but gone off the grid to avoid holiday stress—but around noon, Natasha and Clint come slinking in bearing wine and beer, still in pajamas.

The four of them eat too many cookies, and Bucky pretends not to be pleased when the others practically inhale his macarons. For dinner, they eat turkey sandwiches and mashed potatoes, nothing fancy.  

They watch a movie called _Love Actually_ —a movie that somehow manages to be horribly cheesy, vaguely offensive, and wholly charming all at once—which despite the fact that Natasha makes snide comments throughout, Steve catches her smiling behind a throw pillow at all the happy endings.

When Clint and Natasha have said goodnight and gone back to their floor, Steve finds Bucky staring out the huge window out at the snow flurrying across the night sky.

“Wanna open your present now, Buck?” He says, bumping his shoulder against Bucky’s.

Bucky makes a face. “ _Ugh_. I thought maybe you forgot.”

Steve shoves him lightly, grinning. “More like you _wished_ I forgot. ’S’why I waited ’til now to give it to you, had to lull you into a false sense of security and all.”

He hands Bucky the newspaper-wrapped box, watching him get one finger under the tape so he doesn’t tear the paper at all. It makes him grin even wider because it’s exactly how Bucky had used to open gifts (when they had enough spare change for things like gifts) patiently and carefully, like he was making himself wait just a little longer. Once the box is free of its wrapping, Bucky cuts the tape with a clever flick of one of his metal fingers.

Steve watches as Bucky’s mouth goes from that little twist of concentration to a tiny, surprised smile, eyes lighting up as they fall on the packet’s contents.

“How the hell’d you find this stuff, Stevie?”

Steve shuffles his feet a little, looking away in an abortive attempt at hiding the way his cheeks are flushing.

“I, um, might’ve done some internet hunting. They still sell Heaths at most stores,” he says shyly.

Inside the box, stacked in neat rows, are smaller boxes and cellophane packets of candies that Bucky used to be nuts over back when they were young and money was scarce:  Chick-O-Sticks, Chocolate Babies, Goldenberg’s peanut chews, Milk Maid Royals, 5th Avenue bars, and probably twenty Heath bars.

Steve would buy Bucky a goddamn Picasso if he wanted one, but he knows that Bucky doesn’t feel like he deserves grandiose gestures. He figures that this is the compromise.

“You remembered my sweet tooth,” Bucky beams, like he’s remembering it, too.

“Surprised you got any teeth left in your head, all the sugar you used to eat.”

Bucky makes a rude gesture as he reaches for one of the Goldenberg’s, unwrapping it with a practiced twist.

“Not for long, pally, soon as I get started on this box.” He drawls before popping the candy into his mouth.

 

The two of them put on some weird movie with puppets and a lot of musical numbers, munching on candy while they hot chocolate spiked with Frangelico.

(It doesn’t do anything for Steve besides taste like he’s drinking a peanut-butter cup, but that’s good enough.)

 

When they get ready to go to bed, Steve has to curl his hands into fists and bite his cheek so he doesn’t pull Bucky in for a kiss.

. .

 

“You need to start talking to somebody, Steve.” Sam tells him pointedly one day when Bucky is seeing his SHIELD-ordered therapist Dr. Yu.

Steve is in the middle of folding his and Bucky’s laundry while he and Sam watch reruns of _Man v. Food_.  

Steve is usually ready with a clever brush-off, a skillful diversionary tactic to get people looking left while he goes right.

As it is now, he’s got nothing. He wishes they could go back to several minutes ago, when they were eagerly debating whether Steve could complete the featured food challenge with ease.  

“I know you’ve been a hell of a lot better since Barnes came home, but _dude_ , Steve.” Sam fixes him with that look of his “You can _not_ tell me there isn’t a whole subterranean level of shit you still need to air out.”  

Steve opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it again when he realizes that no, he really can’t. He shrugs, feeling a little hopeless.  

“I just—what good will it do, crying over stuff that’s literally old enough to be in a museum?” He counters, pairing socks and tossing them maybe a little too aggressively into the laundry hamper.    

Sam stares flatly at him. Steve rolls his eyes, puts his hands up in defeat.  

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to do here. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m _fine_.”  

“Because people who are _fine_ totally punch the sand out of vintage bags on the regular,” Sam counters, eyebrows adding extra judgment to his expression. “And furthermore— _yes_ , I said furthermore, step to me—people can _totally_ be in love with their best friends and sleep in a bed with them and not be a big jumbled mess on the inside over it.”  

Steve feels himself flush hotly, and busies himself with the folding of several fluffy towels.  

“It’s not—”  

“—‘like that’, yeah, so you’ve said.” Sam looks like he’d very much like to cuff Steve around the back of the head. “So you’re totally cool with it, yeah? You don’t get hit with the mega-feels when you wake up next to him and remember that— _hey!_ Unsportsmanlike, Rogers!”  

Steve doesn’t care; he had to throw _some_ thing (a towel) at Sam to get him to stop talking. Especially because he does get hit with a heavy dose of reality every morning; there’s the fuzzy first few seconds where he’s got Bucky in his arms and his brain hasn’t caught up to his body and—  

“Okay. Fine. It…sucks.” Steve relents, trying out the modern word and finding it less awkward in his mouth than he’d thought it would be. “It’s fucking awful, Sam."  

He scrubs a hand over his face, sobering up. "Shit, I do need to talk to somebody.”  

Now, Sam is looking smug as all hell. “ _Mm-hmm._ There ya go. They say admitting your problem is the first step to—”  

“—finish that sentence and I’ll throw the whole damn hamper at you,” Steve says blithely.  

“Say ‘hamper’ again.” Sam snickers.  

Steve upends the whole damn hamper over Sam’s head, and the look on his face is worth the work it takes to refold everything.    

 

When Bucky gets back from therapy, Steve has JARVIS play the laundry-dump on a loop while the three of them laugh themselves sick.  

. .  

“So, um, I’ve never really done anything like this before,” Steve tells Dr. Darbar, a small, soft woman with huge dark eyes and an inky black braid that drapes over her shoulder and into her lap.  

Steve thinks that he’d like to draw her, but chides himself for the thought. Unprofessional.  

Dr. Darbar smiles warmly and sets down her clipboard. The room smells…peaceful, like the sage oil Bruce sometimes uses to calm himself in everyday situations.  

“Well, let’s begin at a natural place, hmm? Tell me about you.”  

Steve ducks his head, uncomfortable already.  

“Everyone already knows all there is to know about me,” he says, fidgeting with the pulls on his hoodie.  

Dr. Darbar taps her elegant fingernails along the armrest of her chair and raises one eyebrow.  

“We know about _Captain America_ , yes. I would be willing to bet money that not many people know Steve Rogers,” she says, and Steve can tell she’s not going to let him half-ass this.  

Steve takes several deep breaths, tries to think of how and where to start.  

“Whatever feels like the right place,” Dr. Darbar urges gently, her voice cool and pleasant.  

Steve exhales, lets his shoulders relax.  

“When I was a kid, I was always getting the snot kicked outta me. Then, I met Bucky,” he begins, and the rest of everything pours out of him like water from a pitcher.  

 

Steve talks for the entire hour of their session, the timer going off just as he finishes telling Dr. Darbar about the day Bucky broke into his DC apartment when he got hurt.  

“I think therapy will be very beneficial to you, Captain Rogers.”  

Steve smiles a little embarrassed half-smile, rubs at the back of his neck. “Steve’s fine, Doctor. And I think so, too.”  

“Excellent. I’ll see you again on Friday.”  

As he walks down the hall and out of the building, Steve feels like he set down a heavy cross and left it in that office.  

 

When he gets back to the Tower, Steve could almost cry because Bucky is waiting for him with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches and a bowl of tomato soup made with milk instead of water. Steve finds that he’s starving, and scarfs the food down in record time.  

 

Better than that, though, is the way Bucky smiles at him when they curl up on the couch to watch a movie and says, “’M proud of you, Stevie.”  

 

He can barely keep the dumb smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth, so he says the hell with it and lets himself grin, wide and true.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *if anyone got that Mighty Boosh reference, I love you extra and double. 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm keeping on keeping on with this story, and I'm glad that I've got it at 20 chapters, because it will probably go beyond the end of Silver Thread and into some fun drabbles that I've got written in this verse (and another threat to mankind! or something!) 
> 
> <3 <3 <3 
> 
> ooh, yeah, and find me on tumblr! seawitchbaby.tumblr.com


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brief li'l update because I just got home from a wedding and I'm a little tipsy and I wanted to feel some feels. 
> 
> <3

 

 

Steve sees Dr. Darbar twice a week, and things start feeling less dark and heavy in his mind.

When she asks him to define his relationship with Bucky, he finds he cannot tell her anything other than the truth, naked and raw; _I loved him. I love him._

She nods thoughtfully, sympathetic without losing her neutrality. Steve only realizes he’s crying when she offers him a box of tissues, which he takes without hesitation.

Some days after therapy, he can’t stand to be around anyone else, not even Bucky (a fact which makes him feel like shit) and he holes up with his sketchpad and a blanket or some good books.

Sometimes, on these days, he can’t even bring himself to sketch or read, just huddles under covers and tries to remember the things that Dr. Darbar has told him. How to count, how to pick things in a room and distract himself from anxiety.

Mantras to repeat so he can hopefully one day believe that he, Steve Rogers, is enough. He does not have to be Captain America for his voice to be heard, his feelings to be valid. He is not the sum of his mistakes alone; he is also made up of his successes, however great or small. Before he is a superhero, a national icon, a high-ranking military officer, he is a _man_. A man who is allowed to fuck up. Who doesn’t need to spend the rest of his life trying to repay a debt that no one’s collecting on.

 

One day, when he’s walking down the long hallway to the gym, Natasha slinks up silent as ever and falls in step with him.

“You’re looking good, Rogers.” She says, glancing sideways at him, one corner of her mouth curling upwards. Steve laughs and bumps her with his hip.

“Thanks. It’s ‘cause I work out.”

Natasha laughs with him, the sound rare and sparkling like a diamond only displayed once every ten years.

“That, too.” She says, smiling up at Steve. “But I meant it in more of a…your aura looks good kind of way.”

Steve actually cackles at that, and Natasha digs her thumb and forefinger into his side in a brutal, twisting pinch that makes him yelp.

“I’m serious, Rogers. You seem…I don’t know, _happy_ , or something.”

Steve rubs at the tender skin she’s just abraded, hissing at the little twinge of pain.

He realizes that he _is_ happy. Happier, at least. On the road to happy.

“ _Sheesh_ , Romanoff. You can’t just say ‘aura’ to a guy from the 40s and then get mad when he laughs.”

“I can do whatever I want. Plus, you’re awfully openminded about a lot of other stuff, I thought maybe you’d be into the whole New Age thing.”

“Yeah, Tony gave me an Enya CD as a joke once that I ended up liking, but that’s about as close to ‘auras’ as I get.”

Natasha reaches up to flick him in the ear, hard.

“ _Ow!_ Christ! I think your aura is a little malicious today, maybe you should— _hey,_ ow! Okay, _okay_ , I’ll stop!” Steve raises his arms protectively against the barrage of Natasha’s small and deadly fists.

 

When they make it to the gym, Clint and Bucky are in tactical gear waiting for them so they can do a timed course.

 

Both Clint and Bucky are wholly unprepared for the sight of Steve grinning like a maniac, charging like a bat out of hell with Natasha on his heels, cursing up a storm in Russian and laughing.

They are not prepared in the slightest for Natasha’s spectacular flying leap to land on Steve’s back, nor the high-pitched giggling that Steve lets out when she starts tickling his armpits mercilessly.

They are _certainly_ not prepared for the Xena-Warrior-Princess victory whoop she lets out when Steve surrenders.

. .

“So, like, what’s the deal with you and Bucky? Is he available, or does he have the Cap-shield stamped on his ass? Asking for a friend,” Darcy Lewis likes to use vaguely inappropriate personal questions to announce her presence.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose.

So far, it is only Sam, Natasha, Clint, and Dr. Darbar who are aware of his feelings for Bucky; he doesn’t want to, but he thinks he should probably just tell Darcy, too.

Looking up from the crossword he’s currently failing at, Steve tries to offer Darcy a smile, feeling it fall a little short anyhow.

“I—there's no deal. We’re not, um, like that.” He says, hoping that the wistfulness coloring his voice can maybe be taken for something other than what it obviously is.

Darcy sits down across from Steve, snatching the crossword away and tucking it under her seat cushion. She is staring at Steve with huge, liquid eyes, and he knows that she's already guessed. 

Sighing, Steve runs a hand through his hair, noting with annoyance that he probably should get it cut soon. 

"Look, when I say that it's not like that..." he begins, not sure how to word the part that comes next. 

Darcy blinks at him, looking a lot like a kitten, and Steve suddenly can't stand on ceremony even a second longer. 

"I've always loved him," Steve says, and he is proud of how his voice does not tremble or stumble over these heavy, huge words. These words that do not get lighter with each time they leave his mouth. "I'm in love with him," he clarifies. "But it's not like that." 

Darcy's eyes are welling with tears, and Steve feels--though he's really not sure why--compelled to hug her and tell her it's okay. 

"Who knew living with superheroes would be on par with reading  _Atonement_ , jeez." Darcy says with a sniffle, voice a little thick. "I'm not gonna tell you that you should tell him, by the way. I respect your decision to leave things as they are and would never, ever presume to tell you how to live your life." 

Steve  _does_ get up so he can hug her, just for that. 

 

Darcy Lewis, for the record, gives amazing hugs. 

 

. . .

 

Something bad happens.

Bucky goes to Tony Stark to see about his metal arm, which results in a terrifying ordeal involving an unconscious Bucky, a hyper-anxious Tony, and several layers of HYDRA tech that need to be dismantled with as much care as a bomb.

Steve thinks his poor heart can’t take much more of this.

He gets the text from Tony when he’s leaving the training floor, and literally drops his gym bag where he stands so he can sprint the ten flights of stairs down to Tony’s workshop and medical wing.

“Where is he, where’s Bucky?” Steve demands, feeling unhinged in the worst way.

“Steve, you need to relax.” Says Bruce, who looks especially tired around the eyes, like he hasn’t slept in days. “Tony is in his private lab, and he’s almost finished defusing the defense mechanisms so the arm won’t self-destruct.”

“Wait— _what?_ ” Steve feels his chest constricting almost like an asthma attack. This can't be happening. 

Bruce takes a calming breath before continuing, leaving Steve hanging for several perilous, nightmarish seconds.

“There are…certain measures that HYDRA took to ensure that there was a kill switch. For anyone who tried to get intel from the arm, and…”

“…for Bucky, you mean. What the hell happened? Is he gonna be okay?”

 _He has to be okay_ , Steve’s brain says in a very clever imitation of calmness. _He’s all you have, and he has to be okay_.

“Steve, Tony knows what he’s doing with this stuff. You’ve got to trust him. He knows how important this is. To you.”

Steve nods weakly, adrenaline pumping through his body, making his stomach turn and his fingers twitch.

He needs to get eyes on Bucky, he thinks. If he can just see that he’s not—

“I should be in there with him,” Steve tries to sound relaxed, like he’s in control of himself. He’s never been much of a liar.

Bruce takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Steve, I know you’re really concerned right now, but I’m telling you, just _trust_ Tony. We’re doing everything we can.”

 

Steve ends up jiggling his leg up and down in a chair outside the makeshift operating room, picking up his phone only to put it back down two seconds later.

He’s so nervous, filled with the kind of dread and anxiety he hasn’t felt since he was small.

Bruce had left him to scrub up, offering a vague explanation of the arm Tony’s been secretly working on for the last few months.

The old arm, the thing Bucky bitterly called ‘the Weapon’ is gone; that much, at least, Steve can be relieved about.

What if Bucky wakes up, though, before the new arm is all the way in place?

What if he snaps, forgets where or who he is? What if he triggers Bruce, and—

“Coffee, Rogers? You look like you could use a pick-me-up.” Natasha slinks in, quieter than shadows, bearing a mug of the strong black coffee she favors.

Steve takes it, the smell snapping him out of the panic-trance he’s worked himself into.

“Thanks,” he says, taking a small sip, not caring if he burns his tongue.

They sit together in silence for a long time, Natasha taking Steve’s hand between both of hers, rubbing the joints and pushing her thumb into his palm.

It’s funny; he’s never realized it was possible for hands to get sore until she started working out the tension. He says as much to Natasha, who purses her lips in a sad kind of smile.

“Some things are like that. You don’t know they hurt until you push on them,” she says, before pushing up a little in her seat to press a warm kiss to Steve’s cheekbone.

 

They lapse back into silence, Steve’s hand still cradled between Natasha’s, until Tony comes out to tell them that everything went better than expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more coherent, long update to follow. 
> 
> <3


	10. Chapter 10

 

Steve sits beside Bucky’s hospital bed for almost two days, waiting for him to wake up.

In that time, he reads to Bucky out loud, holds his right hand and strokes the hair back from his forehead. In sleep—or medically-induced rest—Bucky looks years younger. It’s almost easy to forget the wariness that still ghosts over his face in waking life, the hollows around his eyes that still haven’t completely gone.

He looks…peaceful.

Steve has to be reminded to eat, to go back to his floor and take a shower; he knows he’s worrying too much, but it’s _Bucky_.

He wants to be there when Bucky wakes.

And luckily, he is. Bucky’s eyes open slowly, but something about the bright lights makes him blink rapidly, makes the heart monitor start beeping frantically. Steve leans forward in his seat, presses the palm of his hand to Bucky’s forehead to try and steady him. Bucky’s breathing slows from shallow pants into something a little more even, and he blinks a few more times, trying to wake himself up.

They’d had to sedate Bucky, Bruce had told Steve gently; they couldn’t risk him coming back to consciousness while they were attaching the receptors to his nerves. Steve knows the feeling of trying to push through the fog of supersoldier-tranquilizers. And when Bucky rasps out just one word, that word is Steve’s name.

It shouldn’t make his heart stutter in his chest, but it does. It always has.

Reaching for the cup of ice chips he’d brought back from his last bathroom break, Steve picks up a single chip without thinking, holding it to Bucky’s chapped lips. It’s second nature to take care of each other; Steve doesn’t think either one of them could stop.

He feeds the ice to Bucky slowly, giving him time to chew and swallow before offering more. When the ice chips are all gone, Bucky struggles for a moment, trying to sit up. Steve instinctively reaches to adjust the pillows behind Bucky’s back and neck, help him prop himself up in the bed.

“What—what happened?” Bucky asks, and Steve can see the worry in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, like he’s preparing himself for bad news.

Steve tells him what happened, though he tries to be as light as possible—that is, until he’s relieved of the task by Tony, who comes in to explain in his own special, unintelligible technobabble.

And it’s—it’s beautiful, watching as Bucky peels back the covers from his left arm, holds it up and turns it this way and that way, admiring the sleek metal. Steve’s barely listening to Tony, he’s too enrapt by Bucky’s unabashed awe; the arm is, Steve has to admit, an exquisite piece of craftsmanship.

And then, when Bucky reaches for Steve’s hand, Steve can’t help giving Bucky’s new hand a gentle squeeze. It sends a shiver through him, knowing that Bucky can actually _feel_ it.

When Tony leaves, uncomfortable with being thanked so earnestly by both Bucky and Steve, Steve isn’t sure what he should do. Does Bucky want him to stay?

(Steve would stay for as long as Bucky wants him to; he would gladly give up more showers and meals to hold Bucky’s hand and sit vigil.)

In the end, he leaves with that annoying, nagging feeling that he has, yet again, done the wrong thing.

. .

When Bucky finds out about the Maximoff twins, he breaks a computer.

Steve doesn’t blame him one bit.

The anger that rises within him is barely a surprise, given the circumstances. Two people, just kids, really, being detained god-knows-where for god-knows-what purpose just because they have abilities? He feels it coursing through his body, hot and black and sludgy.

Anger always gives Steve tunnel vision, lends a sort of corona to the outer edges of his scope. His hands have always shaken with it, no matter how he tries to be calm. His stomach rolls and his face feels hot, same as when he was 98 pounds. Steve has always wished for the sort of calm menace that someone like Natasha exudes, that unflappable kind of mask no matter who says or does what to her.

Now, his hands are balled into fists so they can’t shake as he tries not to shout at Maria Hill. If he was thinking clearly, he’d be concerned at the overwhelming urge he has to break as many things as he can find.

In the end, it’s Bucky who breaks something; he puts his new fist through the wall and even Maria can’t argue with Bucky’s proposal that he be the official handler for the twins.

Steve feels like doing something embarrassing, like hugging Bucky in the middle of SHIELD headquarters, or crying.

He settles for slinging an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, hopes that it’ll say what his words have always been too clumsy to.

. . .

Things get better, and the twins take to Bucky like Steve had always known they would. It’s strange, having this new Bucky—a Bucky who has interests which surprise Steve, tastes that are far more modern than Steve’s own, and a somewhat-modified version of the personality he’s always had.

It’s strange, but the ache for the ‘old’ Bucky is almost completely gone. Steve knows that that person is gone, a ghost in sepia and faded photographs, but…

He’s done grieving for that Bucky. The one he supposes he thought of as _his_.

It was silly of him to think, though, that there could be a version of James Buchanan Barnes who Steve wouldn’t fall in love with.

Steve wonders about all the alternate timelines, the other universes that Thor has talked about when he’s had too much to drink. He wonders if, in all those other timelines, all those other lives, there are a Bucky and Steve.

He wonders if there’s a universe where everything is the same, except Bucky is unrequitedly in love with him.

 

But there are always things he can be doing to keep busy, like training or missions or helping Sam at the VA, and Steve needs those kind of distractions if he's going to keep this thing inside him at bay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, how sorry am I?
> 
> I have this whole fic almost finished, but there's a bit in the middle I'm stuck on. I have not forgotten all the lovely people who are reading! And I plan to finish this damn thing S O O N. Send me good vibes to overcome this tricky chapter. 
> 
> <3


	11. Chapter 11

“Have you given anymore thought to what we discussed at last week’s session?”

Dr. Darbar isn’t pulling her punches today—she never does, Steve sighs internally—the discussion she’s referring to was very specifically in regards to speaking things aloud to certain parties, in order to clear the air and maybe move on.

It’s…upsetting, the thought of moving on from Bucky, though Steve knows how ridiculously unhealthy that sounds.

Who in their right mind would choose to keep pining for somebody they knew they didn’t have a chance with? Wouldn’t most people, at some point, decide to set sail for new, uncharted waters?

Folding his hands, Steve looks at his knees.

“Yes ma’am, I have.”

Dr. Darbar snorts; they’ve been over the _ma’am_ thing a hundred times, and still sometimes it manages to slip out.

“And?” She asks in that—that _therapist-_ tone of voice she uses to extract every goddamn fibre of Steve’s private thoughts.

“ _And,_ ” he can’t help the annoyance that’s crept into his voice, though he knows he should reign it in. “And _nothing_. I don’t…I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

Sighing heavily, Dr. Darbar leans forward, puts her clipboard aside.

“Steve, I need you to look at me, because I’m going to tell you something important, alright?”

He raises his eyes hesitantly, afraid more of what she’ll see in his face than what he’ll see in hers.

“Okay,” the doctor says evenly. “Steve, I think it would be in your best interest, in the interest of being healthy, to tell Bucky how you feel about him. Either that, or you have to start taking steps to distance yourself from the friendship.”

It stings like a slap, the word distance. Steve doesn’t know what to say for several moments.

He frowns, throat tight. “So, what you’re saying is, I can’t even be friends with him? That’s how fucked up I am?”

“Steve, you’re missing the point—”

“—I loved him before you were born, before your _parents_ were born. It was never a problem.” He’s aware that his voice is louder than it should be, but he can’t seem to help it. “If being his friend is all I get, then I’ll take it. But distance? Is seventy-fuckin’-years enough distance? Because—”

“—That’s _enough_ , Captain Rogers.” Dr. Darbar’s voice never raises, but there’s cold steel there, and Steve immediately feels the fight go out of him.

“Jesus, I’m sorry, I—I don’t know what came over me,” he sits back down, not even having realized he’d stood up during his rant.

Dr. Darbar smiles serenely and raises her eyebrows.

“This is what happens when you keep things bottled up inside, Steve.” she says gently, and Steve wants to hide. “You might think that you’re okay, that you can push down the romantic feelings you have towards your friend, but clearly it’s something that eats at you.”

Steve says nothing. He can’t.

“Seventy years is a long time to love someone, Steve.” She tells him, still speaking in that soothing, calm voice of hers. “I’m sorry if I made you feel pressured, it is always going to be your choice. Just…think about it some more, okay?”

Steve nods, somewhat numb with the realization that the mere _suggestion_ of keeping a little distance from Bucky makes him blind with rage.

The session ends, and Steve takes the long way back to the Tower.

He avoids everyone for the rest of the day, hiding out on the roof and in the seldom-visited greenhouse. He wonders idly who maintains all the beautiful hothouse plants inside.

He avoids Bucky, too. Even when he calls.

. . .

Steve thinks, wincing, face hot with shame, that Dr. Darbar may have been right after all.

What started as a harmless back rub to work out the serious knots in Bucky’s back, ended with an awkward erection and stammered apologies, and now Bucky is in the shower. No doubt hiding from Steve.

And Steve knows it’s his own fault; he shouldn’t have even offered something like that, shouldn’t have said Bucky should take his shirt off. Not after Steve’d seen him sparring in the training facility earlier, fierce and strong and impossibly fine-tuned.

Now, everything is going to be painful, forced small-talk and avoiding each other.

Steve’s stomach turns flips, ties itself in knots.

Whether he wants it or not, it looks like he’ll be getting some distance from Bucky after all.

. .

When Tony’s clearly-shaken call comes through in the wee hours, Steve isn’t even asleep.

He’s been lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes going over the events of the previous afternoon again and again, twisting the knife.

But there’s been a threat against the city, and Steve’s got to go. He’s grateful for the distraction, and then immediately guilty for thinking of a children’s hospital under attack as a distraction.

Steve leaves Bucky’s sleeping form in the dark of the room they share, leaves the awkward, sinking feeling in his stomach about what happened between them just hours earlier. He can’t afford to think about that right now, though it’s not leaving his head anytime soon.

He just wishes that leaving it behind to put on the suit and take up the shield didn’t make him feel so stupidly relieved.

. .

Two hours in, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the steady barrage of enemy fire surrounding the hospital.

First thing they’d done was get all the children and hospital staff to safety, Thor and Sam making sure the building was secure and free of civilians.

Steve can’t keep his head in this fight, though, and he’s sure it shows. A few sloppy mistakes here and there, and he’s going to be nursing some wounds later, when this is all over.

He flings his shield through the air to Natasha, who catches it gracefully before using its edge to slice the throat of one of the alien soldiers in the group that’s surrounded her.

Over the comms, Tony says JARVIS has analyzed the threat and found it to be (according to Thor) alien, from another hostile realm. Not quite Chitauri-scale, but not exactly small potatoes, what with their high-tech weaponry and bloodthirst. The things are nasty under their armor, like—like _space orcs_ , and Steve can’t help making a face when Natasha tosses his shield back to him, stick with the viscous, purple blood of several aliens.

Steve throws himself into this battle, taking out as many as he can at close range while Clint, Sam, and Tony pick off the ones still in the air. Thor has gone off in search of the portal the things are getting in through, and Steve and Natasha have it covered on the ground.

There are several news networks with helicopters over the scene, and Steve knows he’s wishing in vain for them not to televise the attack. It’s bad enough that some people are filming on their smartphones from relatively safe distances away—do folks at home really want to see the Avengers engaged in heavy, messy warfare with things that shouldn’t exist?

Steve’s body is singing from the adrenaline and the rush of hand-to-hand urban combat, and he thinks that maybe this is all he’s good for. Fighting.

He’s too big and clumsy, in this body, for anything else.

He has to be careful, so careful, all the time. He could break someone’s arm shaking their hand.

He’s too old-fashioned and awkward for this century, no matter how many items he crosses off in his little notebook.

Maybe he’s only ever been a good soldier. Maybe that has to be enough.

But there isn’t time to finish the thought, because there’s blinding blue light and a stinging, icy blow to the center of his chest that leaves him breathless. He flies backwards through the glass entryway and makes impact against the far wall. The sound of falling brick and crumbling foundations is the last thing Steve hears, then everything goes black and silent.

.

“Steve?”

There is a voice that calls him out of the darkness, though everything feels like a dream. Steve hurts everywhere, but his head rests on something softer than the ground. Someone’s lap.

“C’mon, Stevie, open your eyes for me,” the person whose lap Steve is lying on is muttering these words, saying his name over and over in a frantic rasp.

 _Bucky,_ Steve’s foggy mind supplies.

“Bucky?” he tries to speak, though his tongue is heavy in his mouth.

The pain he feels is bright and sharp, but far away. Like a star.

“Yeah, it’s me, pal.” Bucky sounds awful, his voice all choked and tight. “I’ve got you, Stevie. ‘M not goin’ nowhere.”

There is a hand, Bucky’s hand, stroking back the hair from his forehead, and when Steve tries to smile, his lip splits a little more.

“How come you’re always savin’ my sorry hide, Buck?” Steve tries to laugh, but it comes out in a rough, crackling cough. It reminds him of the coughing from when he was small, when his lungs were weak and full of fluid more often than not.

Bucky keeps on stroking Steve’s hair, whispering words that Steve can’t understand, because understanding is really hard right now, and his head _hurts_.

It feels nice, though, to be so close to Bucky, even if it’s just because he’s injured.

His eyes close again, the lids too heavy to stay up, and he thinks he hears the rest of his team, muffled and distant, like voices above the surface to a man underwater.

Underwater isn’t new for Steve; he can do drowning, he thinks gamely.

Then, he’s out again.

. . .

It isn’t the first time Steve’s woken to the beeps and whirs of hospital machines, but this time, through the haze of whichever horse tranquilizers they’ve pumped him full of, he tries to smile. Everything is warm and fuzzy, haloed with the effect of the drugs on his system, and Steve’s heart flips feebly in his chest, because _Bucky_.

Bucky, who has nodded off in the chair beside Steve’s bed, chin tucked against his chest, frowning even in sleep.

Debating on whether or not to wake him, Steve decides that Bucky will get a crick in his neck if he stays in that position for too long.

“Have a nice nap?” he pitches his voice low enough so that if Bucky really is deeply asleep, it won’t wake him.

It takes less than a minute for Bucky to shake off the grogginess and sit up straight in his chair.

“You _asshole_ ,” he breathes, and the relief in his voice and on his face are like a neon sign, even to Steve in his medicated haze. “Almost gave me a goddamn heart attack, you good-for-nothin’ punk.”

Steve tries to roll his eyes, tries to grin around the split lip that still hasn’t healed quite yet. His cheeks tingle from the drugs, and he thinks maybe being in the hospital isn’t so bad; there are soft sheets and nice pain meds, and there’s Bucky right next to him, calling him names.

“Well,” Steve tries to sit up, only to be gently pushed back down onto the pillows by a metal hand. “At your—ahem— _advanced_ age, I’m not surprised…”

“Y’know, Rogers,” Bucky laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling just like they’ve always done, “I think I hate you.”

It’s funny, though, because to Steve, the way Bucky says _hate_ makes it sound a lot like _love_.

“Aw, bull _shit_ ,” he argues, still grinning stupidly. “You’re all talk. You know you love me.”

It all seems so easy right now, like if only Steve could sit up and make Bucky take him seriously, he could tell him everything. It would all be okay. There’s something in Bucky’s eyes, something other than the relief and fond aggravation, something Steve wants to chase down until he’s got it figured out.

Then, without warning, Bucky takes Steve’s non-IV’d hand between both of his.

“Don’t think for a second that that means you’re off the hook, pal.” Bucky says softly, and Steve is—though he can’t show it—so damn _angry_ that he isn’t fully coherent for this conversation.

Something has passed between them just now, because there is safety in the short window following near-misses, when people are doped up just enough to maybe think they imagined it all later. Lord knows, Steve heard plenty of Bucky’s rambling when they thought Steve was on his deathbed every winter with pneumonia.

“Don’ wanna be off the hook, Buck,” Steve mumbles, feeling his eyelids droop as the meds release on their timer.

If only he wasn’t so tired, so lightheaded.

 

He falls asleep with his hand still clasped in Bucky’s, and he dreams about Coney Island and sunburnt noses, about the two of them as they are now, only happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised more, and here I am, delivering. 
> 
> STILL AM A PIECE OF GARBAGE FOR NOT FINISHING THIS FIC SOONER. 
> 
> I'm powering through the rest of the bits that had me stuck, and I expect to be finished by Sunday. 
> 
> I don't deserve any of you. 
> 
> <3


	12. Chapter 12

What Steve didn’t plan for, didn’t even think of, was the fallout.

Bucky had stolen a quinjet and fought off aliens with the rest of the Avengers to save Steve, but while Steve was so high on pain meds and the fact that Bucky came for him, he forgot that there were people watching.

People with phones and memories that weren’t quite so short as everyone hoped. Turns out, they remember the masked assassin on the bridge, the man with the metal arm who tried to kill Captain America.

Natasha comes to see him before the call comes in from HQ, figures that he’d do better hearing it from a friend. She tells Steve that Bucky’s going to have to go public, release a statement. Do a press conference.

“Look, Steve…this was always going to happen. Trust that we won’t let anyone do anything to him, okay?” She gazes at him levelly from across the kitchen table, and it’s all Steve can do not to get up and start pacing the floor.

“It’s—this is my fault. He never wanted to suit up again, he’s told me a hundred times. And now, just because of me—”

“Thought your therapist was helping you deal with this shit, Rogers.” Natasha sounds vaguely annoyed, drumming her fingertips on the tabletop.

Steve slams his fist into his thigh, hard.

“It’s not—that’s got nothing to do with this. Bucky’s gonna face a firing squad. He’s not ready for this.”

Natasha reaches across the table to rest her hand on top of Steve’s.

“James made his choice, Steve. He chose to come for you knowing that this could be the consequence.” she looks down at their hands, threads their fingers lightly before lifting her chin to meet his eyes again. “I won’t let anyone hurt him, Steve. I hope you know that.”

Steve realizes, with a tightness in his throat, that he _does_ know it.

“I’m still going to SHIELD to talk to Coulson,” he says, when the sharpness has abated some.

Natasha snorts, rolls her eyes.

“Shocker. Come on, then. I’ll drive you.”

 

Yelling at Coulson and Hill feels good in the moment, Steve has to admit, though he leaves feeling properly chastised. He thinks maybe he should trust these people more than he does. SHIELD has built itself up with the mentality of soldiers instead of spies this time, and Steve is almost ashamed at himself for not trusting Coulson of all people to do right by Bucky.

Still, there are so many things that can go wrong down the path that lays ahead. Steve doesn’t want to have to go on the run, to have to disappear, but for Bucky, he’ll do it.

Of course he will.

. .

“Go off the grid—Rogers, when are you gonna stop being such a damn drama queen?” Bucky is raising his eyebrows and looking for all the world like he wants to laugh.

Steve scowls despite himself.

“Shut up,” he grumbles. “It’s not funny. I’m serious about this, Buck.”

Bucky starts to snicker, but has the good grace to turn it into a phony cough.

“Look,” he sighs, turning a little on the sofa so he can fix Steve with a weary expression. “I don’t like this anymore’n you do, but it’s happening, so.”

Steve knows he’s in definite danger of sounding whiny, but he can’t help it.

“But did they tell you you had to cut your hair?” He asks, hating the petulant note in his voice.

Bucky rolls his eyes and leans back against the couch.

“Well, no, but I figure it can’t hurt, right?” he shrugs. Then, sighing, he cracks a wry grin. “And besides, I could do with a change.”

Steve can’t argue with that, not anymore than he can tell Bucky no.

They shuffle into the bathroom, both too big to maneuver gracefully in the space, even though it’s luxurious by most people’s standards. Steve takes up the scissors with steady hands, swallows the lump in his throat and snips carefully for an indeterminate amount of time, until the floor is covered with off-cuts.

Until the man seated on the edge of the tub looks more like a ghost of himself than ever.

Steve clenches his teeth to keep from saying something stupid while Bucky gets up to inspect himself in the mirror.

When Bucky turns and asks what Steve thinks, Steve’s brain trips through the tangled fields of things it would not be appropriate to say.

He makes a joke instead, because it’s easier.

He’d rather make Bucky laugh, when all’s said and done.

The way Bucky smiles and the way he wrinkles his nose, those things are enough for Steve.

. .  

“What’s on your mind, Cap?” Tony asks, not bothering to turn away from whatever he’s currently tinkering with.

Steve pulls up a chair near the workstation and plunks down into it unceremoniously.

“How do you know I’ve got something on my mind?” he asks blandly. “Maybe I just came to shoot the breeze with my pal Tony.”

Tony’s answering snort borders on hysterical.

He does turn around now, lifting his goggles to squint judgmentally at Steve.

“Okay, you did _not_ just refer to me as your ‘pal.’ I thought we talked about using old person slang in direct relation to me, or anyone else actually cool.”

“Would you rather I called you ‘bro?’” Steve asks innocently, only grinning when Stark scrunches up his face and makes an offended sort of sound.

“No, no I would not.” Tony picks up his project again, keeping his body angled towards Steve so they can talk. “But let’s face it, you’re as transparent as saran wrap. You came down here for something other than banter. Spill.”

Steve sighs, shifting in his chair a little.

“Two days from now, Bucky is gonna appear at a press conference.” he says, hating the words when they’re spoken aloud just as much as he hates them in his head.

Tony gives him a look.

“Uh, yeah. Everyone knows that. Especially me, because Pepper organized the whole shebang. Micromanaging the hell out of it, if I do say so myself.”

Why is it alway so hard for Steve to just spit things out? These people he lives with are his friends, they’ve proven it time and time again, and yet still, with matters of the heart, he finds himself tongue-tied. Tony puts his project down again and gives Steve another look.

“You think they’re gonna take Barnes, lock him up and throw away the key, don’t you?” he says frankly, and Steve grits his teeth.

“That’s part of it,” he agrees, struggling with the urge to fidget or just turn-tail and leave.

Tony sighs, starts to say something, then stops. His eyes go round, liquid-dark in the low light of the workshop.

“You think they’ll try to make him an active agent,” he says in a rush, the way he always talks when he’s on the right track and his brain is working a mile a nanosecond to figure everything out. Steve’s shoulders slump, and he closes his eyes for a long moment.

“He doesn’t want that, Tony.” he tells his friend quietly, like it is a precious secret. “He told me—he’d rather be dead than be someone’s weapon again.”

Tony takes a long breath through his nose, eyebrows raised high, then wipes his forehead with the back of his grease-smudged hand. It leaves a mark on his skin.

“You know we won’t let that happen, right?” he stares at Steve, holding his gaze as though he’s trying to make Steve trust in his words. “Me, Widow, the other Avengers. We won’t stand by and let anyone do that to Barnes.”

After another long silence, Steve nods and cracks a weak half-smile.

“Thanks, Tony.” he says, whole body gone watery and light.

Sliding his goggles back down over his eyes, Tony picks up his project and starts fussing with it again.

“Don’t mention it, Cap. Now, either make yourself useful and hand me that toolbox over there, or leave me to my masterpiece.”

 

Steve stays a little while longer, lets Tony explain the various mechanisms and codes involved in whatever it is he’s building. It’s calming, hearing the technical terms and detailed descriptions, even if more than half of it goes way over Steve’s head.

When he returns to his floor, he finds Bucky waiting with pizza and more movies on their to-watch list.

Maybe, Steve thinks, it will all be okay in the end.

. . .

Steve feels like he might throw up, waiting backstage at the press conference, straightening his tie and steadying his breathing like Dr. Darbar showed him.

He counts backwards from ten, thinks of things, simple things that are good. That make him feel good.

The smell of bread baking. The sound of his friends laughing. Hugs. Dogs. Cats. Socks, still warm from the dryer. Street food. Beautiful singing voices.

“Steve?” He’s startled abruptly out of his listing by a warm voice and warm hand on his shoulder to match. Pepper Potts, looking as polished as ever, stands nearly as tall as Steve in her dangerously high heels. “They’re ready for you,” Pepper says, her eyes kind and knowing.

“I—thanks,” he nods, trying to smile. He takes ten steps to cross over to the edge of the stage, two more to step out from behind the curtain and into the fray.

The cameras flashing in Steve’s face are old hat; he’s been onstage since the 40s, in one way or another. He’s always performing, and now, today in front of a sea of journalists, he will do it again. He slides into that public persona with relative ease striding over to the podium and greeting the crowd the same way he always does.

Clearing his throat, Steve realizes that he has always known what he was going to say here.

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.” He says into the microphone, prouder than he should be of the fact that his voice does not tremble, does not crack. He goes on to tell a couple of stories from when he and Bucky were kids, makes sure to be just _aw shucks_ enough to keep them in the palm of his hand. Feeling warm towards a man they still, more often than not, see as a childhood cartoon rather than a real person.

By the time they are ready to meet Bucky, Steve feels like he’s just given the biggest war bond sales pitch of his life.

He sits backstage and fidgets, loosening the knot of his tie and picking at the skin around his cuticles, doodling on some scrap paper to pass time time. He keeps his temper in check when a few rogue assholes try to paint it like Bucky had been the Soldier by choice, though it’s a close thing.

When Bucky tells them that it felt like coming home, seeing Steve again after everything—well, Steve is hard-pressed to think of anything in recent years that’s made him happier.

.

They get to go home, in the end, and Steve gets a message from a blocked number that says they’ve officially decided against any charges or a trial.

He has to excuse himself, back on their floor of the Tower, to the bathroom. He locks the door so he can sink to his knees, weak with gratitude and relief. He covers his face with his hands and lets the tears come.

Somehow, everything has finally turned around for Steve Rogers, like the universe is finally paying him back for all of the shit and the loss. All the punches he took and the bullets that did more than just graze the skin. All the crazies he’s stopped and the missions he’s completed.

It’s all been worth it, he thinks. Just so that Bucky can be in the other room, dozing on the sofa with a movie playing on the television, a free man.

Steve won’t ask for more, he decides; he can’t. What more could he really want, in the grand scheme of things?

 

(Never you mind what more, he tells himself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three to go! 
> 
> I'm polishing the rough bits in what I have written for the rest, and I have a really good feeling about finishing up by tonight! It's really just editing now, and finishing the ultra fluffy silly epilogue (let's just imagine that none of us saw the trailer for Cap 3, okay? okay.) 
> 
> <3 love you all tons and bunches! Let me know how you're liking it!


	13. Chapter 13

Months go by, seasons change, and Bucky’s hair grows out.

Steve lets go of the breath he’s been holding because things are finally on what seems to be an even keel.

He’s still got missions, though there haven’t been any large scale threats or attacks. HYDRA is still lurking, dormant for now, but they’ve been blessedly silent for awhile. Steve knows SHIELD has eyes and ears on them, and he’ll take what little peace he can get at this point, and not ask too many questions.

Now that Bucky is officially ‘alive’ again, he doesn’t have to be cooped up all the time. Steve tries not to smile like a dope when he sees the picture messages Bucky sends him from around town: runs with Sam, lunch at a little Russian cafe with Wanda and Natasha; museums with Clint and Darcy.

Everyday, Steve learns something new about Bucky. Like, for example, how Bucky is obsessed with super vitamin-packed smoothes from a little fair-trade place in their old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Or, how Bucky has been trying to convince Tony to let him keep a pet in the Tower.

(Apparently, Tony had said something along the lines of “Absolutely not, Sputnik. The last thing I need is some flea-ridden charity case rolling around on my furniture. God knows I’ve already got Barton for that.”)

Unsurprising to Steve, though, is the way Bucky has quickly adapted to fashion in the 21st century. He’s always been, as long as Steve’s known him, a bit of a clothes horse. Conscious of his appearance, always making sure his hair and clothes were just so before he went out. Steve likes the way the future sits on Bucky; he wears it, like most things of a sartorial nature, quite well.

(Steve ignores the point on purpose—the point being that he just likes Bucky, period.)

. .

“You ever play any video games?” Bucky asks one day, when Steve’s schedule is blissfully clear of all meetings, training sessions, and briefings.

Looking up from his dogeared copy of The Hobbit, Steve cocks his head.

“Yeah, ‘course. I’m terrible at ‘em.”

Bucky grins, and Steve’s stomach does backflips.

“Wanna play one with me?” Bucky asks, eyebrows raised.

Glancing out the window, Steve weighs it against any other plans he could potentially make. It’s mid-September, balmy and sunny outside, but there’s a kind of laziness that’s seeped into Steve’s bones today, stopping him short of doing anything really productive.

(Also, he has to face the reality that he’s been stuck rereading the same sentence since Bucky shuffled in and flopped down at the other end of the couch, stretching his legs out and hogging all the room.)

“Yeah, okay.” He says finally, marking his page and putting the book aside. “What game did you have in mind?”

Bucky just grins wider, showing all his little teeth, and asks JARVIS to set it up.

 

The two of them end up playing the LEGO Hobbit game for an hour and a half before Clint stops by with his hand in a bag of chips, bored and looking for entertainment.

He sits down on the floor and immediately gets frustrated with Steve’s ineptitude concerning game controllers, so Steve hands it over, content to watch Clint and Bucky play instead.

Natasha slinks in quietly after a little while, plopping down with her back resting against Steve’s side and her legs draped over Bucky’s lap, aggressively backseat-playing.

“I don’t remember this being in the book,” Steve says during one particularly silly cut-scene.

The others groan and throw things at him.

(A pillow, an empty water bottle, and a sock.)

When they get bored of the game, Clint suggests Cards Against Humanity, and they call around to see who’s around to join. Steve can’t believe he forgot to tell Bucky about the game this whole time.

It ends up with Steve, Bucky, Sam, Clint, and Natasha gathered around Steve and Bucky’s coffee table, the card combinations becoming increasingly ridiculous and terrible. Steve’s heart beats wildly every time he catches sight of Bucky across the table, that bright, open, perfect expression on his face when he throws his head back and laughs.

Their eyes meet for a moment when it’s Steve’s turn to judge the cards, Bucky’s cheeks still flushed from laughing, and Steve smiles back—then, the moment is utterly destroyed by the pair Sam throws down.

 **What gets better with age?** and **Genetically-engineered supersoldiers.**

Needless to say, Sam wins that round.

. .

“You’re looking well, Steve.” Dr. Darbar smiles warmly, sitting down to begin their session. “Tell me; what is going on with Steve Rogers this week?”

Steve tells her about how he visited the children’s hospital with Tony last week, how he made sure he spent some time with every kid. He finds himself saying that it gets to him, seeing their tiny little bodies fighting off monster-sized infections. If he’d been born nowadays, he’d likely have been in and out of hospitals like the one he visited.

He tells Dr. Darbar that he had hoped modern medicine would have come a bit further than it has, that they’d have figured out how to stop certain viruses and cancers from taking hold of innocents who’ve never done a damn thing to deserve the pain.

“It makes sense that you would have a tenderness for children who struggle with illness,” Dr. Darbar says. “I imagine it’s a little like having a window into your own childhood?”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, nonplussed at the thought. “Their parents and guardians have to be so strong all the time, especially in front of the kids. Hell, it was a struggle for me to sit with them for a couple of hours and not be crushed by the urge to pity them.”

“But when you were small and sick, I’d be willing to bet you rejected pity,” Dr. Darbar smiles.

Steve huffs a laugh. “That obvious, huh?” he scrubs a hand over his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. Couldn’t stand when grown-ups would look at me with those sad eyes.”

(He’d discreetly approached Bruce later, back at the Tower, and asked if there was any way that his blood could be studied for potential use creating a medicine for childhood diseases. Bruce had looked quietly stunned for several seconds, presumably because he’d never thought of it himself, then he’d taken Steve to the lab to get some samples. Steve is still hoping, though he knows it’s farfetched, that something good will come of it.)

“Anything else you’d like to talk about today?” Dr. Darbar asks easily, pleasant as ever.

Steve fidgets, picks at some imaginary lint on his pants.

“I saw your friend Bucky gave a speech for veterans,” she adds, glancing up from her notes. “It was very moving. He’s incredibly well-spoken.”

Steve can’t help the rush of pride, thinking back on the way Bucky had held his head high and told the people watching that there was no hole too dark to come back from, not when you have a support system. He’d spent the hours afterward talking with other vets, many former POWs, some homeless.

Steve saw, whether Bucky knew it or not, a little bit of the burden of his time as the Soldier lift from Bucky’s shoulders that day.

“He’s always been good with words,” Steve agrees. “Good with a lot of things.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Darbar hums thoughtfully.

The timer for their session goes off, though, before she can ask anything else.

. .

Tony Stark’s impromptu dance party.

The mere idea of it on paper sounds ludicrous, Steve thinks, shaking his head and watching Bucky Lindy hop across the floor with Darcy to an Andrews Sisters song he’d always liked.

Bucky moves with fluid grace, all loose limbs and easy feet; everything Steve could never be. It’s beautiful to watch him, like an echo of his old self and also not. After the song ends, Bucky saunters over to the bar, flushed and beaming at Steve, gluing him to the ground where he stands.

“Know where a fella can get one of those?” he gestures to the beer Steve’s drinking, mostly so he’ll have something to keep his hands busy.

Steve points to the one he’d grabbed for Bucky, and Bucky gladly opens it and takes a long swig. Steve tries not to stare at the long line of Bucky’s throat as he swallows.

“You keep starin’ at me like I grew a second head, Rogers. What gives?” Bucky drawls, corners of his mouth curling upwards.

Across the room, Tony is shimmying aggressively at Pepper in some convoluted attempt to get her to dance with him.

“S’nothing, Buck.” Steve says, shaking his head and smiling. “Just reminiscing about all those times I watched from the bar while you danced across the floor with your date _and_ mine.” Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes fit to rival Natasha.

“ _Hmmph_. They never knew what they were missing, your lousy dates.”

Steve’s heart gives a little flutter in his chest, and he grips the neck of his beer bottle a little tighter.

“Oh, yeah?” he makes himself ask. “And what were they missing, exactly?”

Bucky’s eyes dart away, like he hadn’t expected that response, and Steve’s about to say the hell with it and do something monumentally stupid, like confess everything, but all of a sudden Darcy is requesting some celebratory Indian song and recruiting Bruce of all people to help her teach the dance steps.

Steve lets himself be dragged into the lively shuffle of Darcy and Bruce’s _Bhangra_ dancing, though he’s clumsy and laughing the whole time. The music is upbeat and joyous, so wholly different from anything Steve’s ever heard, and he loves it all the more for it. He lets Bucky bump into him and nudge him with his foot, happier than he’s been in a long, long time.

Next, there’s a bizarre interlude featuring a frankly impressive impromptu tap duet between Sam and Clint, followed by Asgardian folk dance 101 with an overly-enthusiastic Thor.

When Natasha leads Pepper in a dramatic, sweeping ballroom dance to _Wrecking Ball,_ Steve can only look at his fourth useless beer and sigh, wishing he could get drunk.

 

Then, it all goes sort of wrong.

Tony puts on a slow number, one that makes Steve’s throat ache and his fingers itch to grab Bucky and pull him close, and then the next thing he knows, Bucky is asking him to dance.

It’s a bad idea, everything in Steve’s brain is screaming at him to just laugh it off, to back away while he can still save face, but it isn’t meant to be.

He lets Bucky walk him in slow circles, swaying to the gentle crooning of the song, a little ways away from everyone else.

“I never danced like this with anyone,” Steve hears himself say, quiet and low.

But, oh, he wanted to. He always wanted to be the one Bucky held close, the one whose ear Bucky whispered into while the band played something slow.

“I woulda danced with you like this, Stevie. If it wouldn’t have got us killed or arrested, I’d have saved every dance for you.”

And—and it fucking _aches_ like nothing else, this overwhelming frustration and stinging pain.

“Don’t say stuff like that, Buck, okay?” the words feel pinched, bitten off. “Just—it’s not fair.”

Bucky pulls back, confusion rumpling his mouth.

“You lost me, pal.”

This is a joke, isn’t it? It has to be, Steve thinks desperately. He’s in some alternate universe, and some crackpot villain is making all this happen to him, feeding off his deepest desires and fears. This can’t really be happening, can it?

“Look,” Steve says tightly, pained. “I know you don’t—it’s fine. Just, please don’t tease me, Buck. I—just, don’t.”

Then, Steve leaves Bucky, leaves them all to their dancing, slipping away back to his floor.

Their floor.

.

He doesn’t know what to do now, how to go forward.

He’s always been the one to charge blindly ahead, but this has got Steve dead in his tracks looking over the edge of a precipice with weak knees.

Can Bucky really be this cruel? Steve doubts it; though the alternative isn’t much more comforting. He can’t bear the idea of telling him, of having to spell it out for Bucky and then having to watching those puzzle pieces slotting into place. Watch for the precise second his best friend starts to pity him.

Steve picks up his sketchbook, unable to calm himself any other way.

Of course, he finds himself sketching out the familiar lines of Bucky’s face for the millionth time. He gets lost in the drawing, and that helps—at least until Bucky comes stomping through the door.

“Wanna tell me what the hell all that was about back there?” Bucky’s voice is calm, but Steve can read him like his favorite book. There’s an underlying irritation, an edge to his voice. And it pushes Steve’s buttons, honestly. It makes Steve suddenly so mad he could choke on it.

“Come on, Buck. Like you don’t _know_.” His fist is curled tightly around the pencil, and he thinks it might feel good to break it. Split it in two and let the splintered wood poke into his hand.

“No, I really don’t think I do,” Bucky counters, brows knit in frustration.

And that _really_ pisses Steve off, that obliviousness on the face of someone who’s always been clever, always known Steve best. He shoves the sketchpad aside and stands so he can look Bucky in the eyes when he says “Oh, fuck _you_ , Bucky Barnes.” He practically spits the words. “Like you don’t know that I’ve been—”

And Bucky is rolling his eyes like here we fucking go, and he practically shouts “Just spit it out, Rogers!” at the same time the words finishing Steve’s sentence finally manage to come tumbling out.

“—in _love_ with you since I was twelve!”

The words ring out through the spacious, modern apartment, real and tangible and awful. Irrevocable.

Steve feels sick, he wants to run, wants to—

“Say that again, Stevie.” Bucky has his eyes closed now for some reason, that little furrow between his brows like he’s concentrating hard.

Steve doesn’t know why he bothers, why he’s even still standing here, but he does as he’s asked. He’ll always do what Bucky asks.

“I said, I’ve been in—”

But he doesn’t get to finish, because Bucky crowds up into his space and kisses him, keeps kissing him, like it’s what he’s always wanted.

Like he’s been waiting for Steve’s permission.

And Steve feels like he’s been punched in the solar plexus with the force of receiving everything he’s ever wanted but never dared to hope for.

Bucky’s hands are on either side of his face, like he’s afraid Steve will try and pull away or something equally ridiculous. Their teeth bump and their kisses are a little too desperate to be very skilled, but that’s okay with Steve. Better than, in fact.

 

They spend two almost-uninterrupted hours necking and horsing around like the kids they maybe could have, would have been if things had been different.

Steve can’t seem to keep his hands to himself, but it’s okay because neither can Bucky.

 

He reasons that there’s a lot of lost time they’ve got to make up for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the home stretch now!
> 
> YAY FOR CONFESSIONS. 
> 
> 2 more fluffy fluff chapters to gooooo <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fluff/smut/fluff/smut

The first time they go to bed together feels like everything shifting and locking into its rightful place, like the long-awaited explanation for a lifetime of decisions.

The first time Steve lays Bucky down on the bed, he is so nervous. His hands shake with the weight of getting everything he never thought he would have.

“Do I really get to have this, too?” He murmurs, looking down at the man underneath him, the man who he has known longer than anyone else. Steve is scared it will all be taken away, if he fucks up even in some minuscule way.

Bucky just holds his gaze for a long second, biting his lip and breathing only slightly heavier than normal. Then, he pulls Steve down for a kiss that’s more teeth than anything, using the element of surprise to gain enough momentum to flip them so Bucky is on top.

“Enough talking.” he hisses against Steve’s mouth, teeth clacking against Steve’s. “Gonna have to fuck that self-esteem up to where it should be.”

Steve laughs and feels Bucky’s grin.

Steve hasn’t felt this—this wanting in so long, maybe never like this. He knows he’s never been wanted like this, anyway.

Bucky is a talker, which doesn’t surprise Steve one bit, murmuring all kinds of sweet words against every inch of Steve’s skin he can get at. He whispers hotly against Steve’s ear, purrs and groans and curls his words around Steve like he curls his body around him.

“Look at you, Stevie, Jesus Christ.”

“Lord’s name in vain, Buck.” Steve manages to say between moans.

“Think the good Lord’d be willing to let it slide, if he could see you right now. _Fuck_ me, you’re gorgeous.”

And Steve has to close his eyes, so intense is the bare want on Bucky’s face.

It makes Steve’s whole body light up on the inside, being the focus of that want.

 

When he comes, it's so violent that it leaves him trembling, shaky and weak. 

.

“It would have been worse,” he tells Bucky, after they’ve cleaned the sweat and sticky-release from their skin.

“Hmm?”

“Losing you in the alps,” Steve clarifies, pulling Bucky in close so he can breathe in his scent. “If we’d been—before, if we’d—”

“If we’d had this, too?”

“Right,” Steve sighs, exhaling through his nose.

He feels like he might tear up, to his mild horror. He wonders, vaguely annoyed, what's up with him and almost crying all the time lately. 

“Losing you nearly killed me anyhow.”

“If you’d’a had your way, it would have,” Bucky snorts, nuzzling into Steve’s chest. “Nothin’ subtle about a crashing a plane into the ocean, pal.”

“Shut up,” Steve says, savage love for Bucky, so fierce, welling up within him.

“M’ just sayin’, if your little reckless flirtations with death had been successful, I wouldn’t—we wouldn’t be here right now.” Bucky explains, then cuddles closer.

Steve doesn’t know how he could ever have taken one breath on this earth without Bucky by his side. He thinks he should be ashamed that he ever tried.

“Looking back, I don’t know how either of us managed to miss this, first time around.” he admits.

Bucky laughs, and the sound goes straight to Steve’s scientifically reenforced heart like a lightning bolt or one of Clint’s arrows.

“Let’s not waste anymore time then, huh, sweetheart?” He drawls, and then he pulls Steve in for a kiss that’s slow but loaded with intent, with promise.

Steve can’t really do anything besides melt under Bucky’s careful touch.

“God, I love you. You can’t know how much. You can’t fuckin’ know,” Bucky murmurs hoarsely, thumbs stroking Steve’s cheekbones.

“You’re a sap, Bucky Barnes.” Steve says, voice dopey and fond. “It’s three in the morning, and we need to sleep. You can finish telling me how head over heels you are for me at a reasonable hour.”

Bucky flicks him in the ear, laughing.

“Fine. See if I ever try to pour my heart out to you again, Rogers.”

.

In the morning, Steve wakes to a sleep-rumpled Bucky propped up on one arm staring down at him with soft eyes, biting his lip and stroking Steve’s hair.

The sight of Bucky in the midmorning sun, the angle of his jaw and the cleft in his chin, the curves and dips of his muscles; Steve thinks he could live and die a thousand times in a thousand other universes and never ever deserve this happiness.

. .

After—well, after everything, Steve finds that he wakes smiling most days.

He doesn’t get the same sick, crushing sense of dread to leave the comfort of his blankets.

(No, he does not. Now, though, there’s the problem of Bucky not wanting to let Steve leave the bed in the mornings. Steve is probably more okay with this than he should be.)

Steve is allowed to touch Bucky all the ways he’d never dared to hope for; he’s allowed to kiss the frown or the smirk off of Bucky’s little rosebud mouth, to reach out and hold on.

It will never stop taking his breath away, this privilege.

.

The first time Steve and Bucky are late for an Avengers briefing with SHIELD—due to ‘oversleeping’ as Bucky says with a smirk so filthy it makes Coulson go a little red around the ears—becomes a story told to new recruits and lower-level interns like an urban legend.

“Ugh, you two smell like sex. Old people sex. That’s vile, I vote we send the fossils back home,” Tony swivels back and forth in his chair, earning himself a serious glare from Maria Hill.

Steve can’t even find it within himself to be embarrassed; not when just an hour ago, he had Bucky’s cock in his mouth, full and heavy, had Bucky’s fingers wound frantically in his hair. Had the sweet sound of Bucky’s bitten-off curses and fevered ramblings as he came, hot and thick onto Steve’s eager face.

“Got a li’l something,” Bucky smirks, licking his thumb and reaching over to wipe at a spot on Steve’s cheek.

“Must be shampoo. I was kinda in a hurry to shower this morning. Y’know, on account of the oversleeping,” Steve can’t resist, that’s how giddy and light he feels.

The rest of the Avengers’ reactions are predictable; Tony groans and throws his hands in the air, while Clint offers Bucky a high five and a grin. Sam looks at the ceiling like he can’t figure out what he did to deserve getting saddled with these people, and Bruce is pinching the bridge of his nose, trying not to laugh.

Natasha looks smug, but then again, she always looks like that.

. . .

Coming out publicly is a sort of mixed bag, as far as Steve is concerned.

On the one hand, he’s just glad he can say who he is and who he loves, and not have to worry about being put in jail.

On the other, he’s getting a little sick of the cretins at Fox News making comments about how his level of trustability has plummeted since coming out, because how can anyone trust an icon who lied for so long about his sexuality?

(Steve realizes, he _does_ , that there’s really no point in mentioning that no one bothered to ask before, they just assumed he was totally, 100% straight.)

For the most part, though, it’s worth it just to hold Bucky’s hand in public, to steal a kiss when they sit together in Central Park, to have late night talk show hosts inquire pleasantly as to his relationship. To be able to smile and duck his head when they ask, and say that he’s happily wrapped around Bucky Barnes’ little finger.

(That particular interview on Jimmy Fallon, in addition to getting a bajillion hits on YouTube, earns Steve a pretty spectacular blowjob upon arriving home from the taping. Turns out, Bucky’s a little possessive. Turns out, he likes a million viewers hearing how gone on him Steve is.)

The one thing that Steve would gladly be rid of if he could?

His friends’ not-so-subtle hints about proposing.

Tony: “So should we have the reception in one of my buildings, or..? Oh, come on, Cap! Pepper can plan it all! It’ll be very tasteful!”

Natasha: “So when are you going to make an honest man out of our James, Steve?” Steve can only roll his eyes and snort and reply that no ring or ceremony or piece of paper is every gonna turn Bucky Barnes ‘honest,’ not when a hundred other nuns and priests have failed. Bucky hears from the next room and comes in just to flick Steve’s ear, laughing too hard to hit him with a comeback.

Darcy: “I’m not saying you have to get married, but…ok you can’t tell me that you haven’t fantasized about Bucky in a tux. Because _damn,_ son.”

Clint: “There’s, uh, a little church in the Nevada desert. I marked it on that map of the States I gave you for you birthday? Anyway, um, yeah. It’ll be quiet, just you and him and the little old lady who owns the place.”

(Okay, so maybe Clint’s was actually helpful.)

 

(One road trip, two rings exchanged, and a whole lot of groping later, and Steve thinks his friends might have had a point. Marrying Bucky was a hell of a good idea.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost to the silly, happy epilogue! 
> 
> I appreciate you all, who have read from the beginning, and those of you just hopping aboard now! You are all beautiful precious twinkling gems. 
> 
> <3


End file.
